After three weeks without a visit, I finally got around to returning to the Cooper’s Hawk nest at the Guelph Lake Nature Centre on Saturday.  Unfortunately the parking lot gate was closed, and spotting a parking ticket on the windshield of one of the other cars parked along the shoulder, I kept my visit brief.  Mom was on the nest, tearing up and feeding some hapless prey animal to the business end of the fluffy white hawklet butt I could see sticking out.  I couldn’t tell if there were any other young in the nest — vantage points are few from the ground.

I dropped by again today after work, and this time got a much better view of the chick (or perhaps one of the chicks — I’m still not sure if there are others in the nest).  He watched me curiously from high up in the willow tree for a few minutes before settling back down out of sight.  From this angle I could see some  feathers poking through the fluffy white down of his breast and back.

Mom was perched just above him, keeping a close eye on me.  After a few minutes of sketching she lost interest and dozed a bit.  Her yellow eyes are beginning to take on a coppery hue as they deepen into the red of an adult Cooper’s.  Still no sign of her mate — perhaps next time he’ll show up.

Tuesday afternoon, my niece and I went out birdwatching in the back fields.  Halfway down the trail we came across a trio of Eastern Kingbird fledglings, noisily demanding morsels from the busy adult birds. No keening or mewling from these youngsters — already they’d developed the sharp, distinctive voices of their parents.  It’s the only manner in which Kingbirds will communicate: YELL IT.

Lynn takes a peek through the scope. She has a little trouble keeping just the one eye closed.

Kingbirds have the honour of being dubbed Tyrannus tyrannus, the Tyrant of Tyrants.  They are highly aggressive during the breeding season, and any feathered foe from jays to eagles is fair game.  Most of them respond appropriately: tuck tail and flee.  Human observers who overstep their bounds aren’t always immune from such treatment either, and as such the two of us kept our distance.

Kingbird chicks have a relatively long period of dependency for a songbird, as the parents will continue to provide for them for another two to five weeks after fledging.  Because of this, pairs often raise only one brood per season.  I suspect an extended military-style training regiment for the young birds is the explanation for such reliance.  How else does such a small creature learn to single-handedly terrorize an entire neighbourhood of predators and egg-snatchers?

Hummingbirds at rest are one of my all-time favourite subjects.  Ever alert, they are continually raising and relaxing their iridescent feathers.  The smallest turn of the head will release dazzling refracted rays of colour, while the next will turn that fiery gorget into ebony. Their exceedingly high metabolism (the highest of any vertebrate) keeps their little chests heaving rapidly, and the perpetual state of near starvation they exist in from burning off all that fuel means that they must be ever ready to drive competitors away from their precious food supply.

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Hummingbirds burn so much fuel, in fact, that they must put their bodies into hibernation (or, more correctly, nocturnation) every night — a state known as torpor, in which in the heart rate slows, the body temperature drops, and the bird’s metabolism eases to as little as 5% of its daytime rate.  This hypothermic state gets them through to sunup the next morning, when they can once again begin feeding.

Finding so much energy and aggression packed into such a tiny scrap of feathers is part of what makes hummingbirds so much fun to watch.  Although they rarely sit still for long, they do tend to return to the same perch again and again in between feeding sessions or aerial dogfights, so one does get ample opportunity to sketch.