TW3 - There are babies!

Cliff Swallow Nests - Babies are the spotted faces

The first time in my adult life I moved east of the Mississippi it was to Washington, DC. A history buff especially of the period from 1860 to 1910 I toured every Civil War battle field I could and would look at the trees anxiously awaiting fall. As a westerner I was looking forward to all the oranges and reds of the eastern forests but I got hired by a US Senator running for re-election and suddenly one day in late October I noticed I was trodding on soaked brown leaves. I had totally missed fall!

You miss an awful lot when you are overly busy. When I announced I was not going to do any more art fairs one of my on line friends asked if that meant there were going to be more Cliff Swallow photographs posted. Yes!
Acrobatic parent bringing food to chicks in nest

I was in my twenties when I first missed fall in DC. I am no longer a spring chicken and there are not that many more falls and springs and summers I want to miss because of being too busy. Yesterday I sat on my studio porch with my Nikon D90 and the 70mm - 300mm lens and caught up with the progress of the Cliff Swallows. Amazing birds.

Two juvenile birds in nest behind parent launching into flight

And while there I decided to catch up on this year's humming birds too. Everyone else has been posting pictures of these amazing visitors but me it seems.

 

Seems I was always too busy to do more than feed them. And this year with the drought and very few flowers feeding them is something I was falling behind on until lately. These little creatures can go through a quart a day.
While this Rufus was sucking it up the feeder sent bubbles to the top not unlike those water coolers in offices. It can be rather funny.

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