hummer firecracker

Though hummingbirds have started to arrive on Long Island (can any of my readers confirm this?), we are still at Calypso on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, waiting for warmer weather and green leaves back home. I filmed this yesterday.

Male Bahama Woodstar

My son Rafael, an avid bird photographer (see http://mainebirder2018.blogspot.com), is here at Calypso. Here are a couple of his nice shots of a Woodstar adult male, and also one of a Cape May warbler.
Ruby-Throat Hummers have now reached Long Island -  http://hummingbirds.net/map.html

they are almost here!

Here's today's migration map  from Lanny Chambers (from http://hummingbirds.net/map.html) - hummers are very close to Long Island!

and here's what he will look like

Kite Surfing

Filmed at Calypso today march 28.

summer hummers

I've been sorting through old clips from last summer in Baiting Hollow - here are a few keepers. The first shows one interrupting a snack on shrimp plant to attack an intruder.

The next is a slo-mo feeder clip.

next, feeding at various salvias

and at zinnia (slo-mo)

finally, 2 more fighting sequences

another male hummingbird, and a beach

Adult Male Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird

This fellow is guarding the 2 feeders under the porch of our house at Calypso, on the island of Eleuthera. He perches on a clothes line we sometimes use when it rains. Notice his purple gorget (black except when viewed from the front). The third video is a view of coconut palms here.

Donna DeSousa visits Calypso

Some of you may know Donna DeSousa, an avid hummingbirder in Greenlawn who has been a long-time supporter of the sanctuary, and who started the FaceBook page "Friends of the Baiting Hollow Hummingbird Sanctuary". Tragically her teenage daughter Maggie succumbed to a brutal cancer last year and I took over the administration of FotBHSS, while she has set up an organization to fight childhood cancer: Maggie's MIssion. She recently took a much needed break here at Calypso and took this picture of a young male hummingbird just outside her oceanfront cottage:

She showed me where he was perching and I got this video:

A Couple of Beach Videos

Here are today's views to the right (i.e east) and left (i.e. west) from the beach at Calypso. The recent storms in the Northeast generated big waves that have shifted sand onto our beach.

Recycling an old nest

6 weeks ago I filmed a hummingbird nest in our yard on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera which was briefly occupied by a soon-to-fledge youngster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=bzPt7-ME9uo). Today, sitting under the shade of the tropical almond that sheltered that nest, I noticed a hummer briefly fussing at the nest. She was making darting movements with her bill and I thought she was rebuilding the nest, perhaps for a new brood. But it was too quick to be sure what was happening. So I fetched my camcorder and waited for her to return. After a half an hour she did return and started fussing again. It only lasted a few seconds but I got a brief video, and reviewing the footage one can see clearly she's rapidly snatching fragments of her old nest - presumably to use them elsewhere. In a way I'm rather relieved she's not going to re-occupy this old nest, because, as they do several times a year, the almond is in the process of losing all its leaves, and the nest would be exposed to the fierce sun. I'll try to find the new nest she's building. 4X slo-mo.