Springtime and new Babies abound

Now that my teaching is done for the season - I am able to have fun in Photography and just take photos for fun and enjoyment of it.  We have many folks here that are "birders" and take great pleasure in watching our bird families here so I decided to hang with some and take photos... Here a mother Dove sits on a nest waiting for her eggs to hatch.

Within a couple of weeks two little heads popped out of the nest.

One baby flew the nest and this one was still hanging around with mom.

Many folks here keep Hummingbird feeders as we have many varieties in AZ

We found this little mom sitting on her nest - so we knew we were going to see babies soon

That little mom cleverly built her nest atop a pine cone - cute isn't it?

Within no time 2 little beaks popped out of that nest.

Here's a closer look at these twins....

A few houses down we spotted another mom who was awaiting babies.

Typically Hummingbirds lay 2 eggs and in this case only one out of the two made it.

That one little baby was quite a fighter and pretty hungry.

She grew quickly because this mom had no problem with the many visitors here at her tree and fed her little baby several times an hour.

This baby hopped away from the nest and sat on a branch not at all afraid of me and my lens - look at those downy feathers on her bum.

She spent quite a bit of time preening her feathers.

Here she is distributing the oils through her feathers on her wings.

We watched as she held onto the branch and tested her wings.

Here she is fluttering her wings as fast as the adult hummers do and you can barely see them they are going so fast.   When we came back the next day... she was gone .... obviously flown off to a new adventure looking for nectar from the flowers.  Nature is wonderful.