Final hurrah!

  

Okay, one more hummingbird post!  Eric was in Davis all week, so when he arrived in Cotati tonight we went by to check on the Anna's Hummingbird family.  No juveniles in the nest, but we found one in a tree not too far away.

Eventually we heard the mother hummingbird calling in the area, and then to my surprise, the juvenile starting calling, too.  I hadn't heard a juvenile hummingbird call before, so it was a fun moment for me (and check out the video below!).

 

 

The juvenile's begging call is a very high-pitched seet note.  It is described as a begging call, but it also seemed like a contact call — alerting its mom to its location.  Then the mom flew in for a feeding:

 

 

When the juvenile started calling, I decided to try to record a video with my camera to capture the sound.  Although I was mostly trying to record audio and wasn't really trying to get a video, the juvenile is in the video and called a few times, so here you go!  

The call note is somewhat faint and very high pitched, so it might be hard to hear.  If needed, you can try using headphones, and turning up the volume of your speakers.  Watch for the juvenile opening its bill and listen for the call notes at ~2 seconds, 7 seconds, and 20 seconds.  (There are some background sounds — dogs barking, kids playing, a bat hitting a ball, etc.)

[If you are reading this in an e-mail and can't see the video player below, click on the title of the post to go to the NHBH website.]

I'm doubtful that we'll see the juveniles again, but this was a fun final hurrah!