This is for the birds...

We are fortunate that Small Potato is located near Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. They are great areas for watching birds. We can't claim to be "birders" per se... but we have a lot of fun and find the deep variety of these beautiful creatures to be rather facsinating.

Please enjoy these images. We enjoyed gathering them!
Hummingbirds 2004: This is the third year in a row that we've had nesting activity. The location is in a rather tall jade plant over our pond. many of these shots were done from a nearby front window. In April of 2004 we observed a hen zoom in to the remnent nest, settle in and begin sprucing things up. At first we thought it was Anna, but soon realized this was a different bird. It was very flighty and nervous at any movement- much different from mellow Anna. Since this bird felt so at home in the location we concluded it must be Rita, who was born here 2 years ago. Rita hatched 2 chicks this year, we named them Harrison and Starr.

Since she was so nervous, I kept the picture gathering pretty low key this year. I used a long lens and a lot of patience... but I think the quality of the images I did get were worth the effort.
baby ringo
momma anna
This was taken about 10 minutes after the hen arrived. She's looking things over- there is much too do! You can see she has been working on the nest- and has a fresh batch of cobwebs ready to go.
nest building hatching
More Birds
More Hummingbirds
It was hot this day- Rita shades the eggs and catches a little breeze. A few days old here- and only one chick in sight.
feeding time
first flight
2 weeks old. I like the details in the sprouting feathers, and that you can see Kaya's hair woven into the nest.
1 week old. I used a small mirror to get this shot. Good news- 2 chicks! For scale- the nest opening is about the size of a quarter.
3 weeks old. Looks like it is getting crowded but they manage.
About 4 weeks old. They were sitting like this late on a Friday.
Saturday morning- Starr is sitting low in the jade tree overhanging the pond. Harrison is nowhere to be seen. They have left the nest! In the afternoon Harrison was seen atop the tower on the other side of the pond.
Sunday Morning- Starr gets a feeding.
They spent the afternoon and their first night in the potato plant behind the pond... it was easy for Rita to find them for feeding.
Then Rita goes and finds Harrison in the redwood tree...
...she returns and feeds him.At this point she is very busy flying back and forth to feed both.
More Hummingbirds
More Birds
Sunday Night- we found this little dove chick in the side yard. They are numerous in a nearby tree.
Starr settles in for the night.
..and the dove takes the Pear Tree. Everyone is cozy.
Harrison decides on the Cherry Tree...
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