LYCOS RETRIEVER 
The Hummingbirds: Females
built 270 days ago
Hummingbirds will be successful at nesting if they are not harassed during the process. The best rule of thumb is hands off. If an egg falls out of the nest it is best to let the female re-nest or try again. Most eggs do not survive a falling without getting broken or cracked. If a nestling falls out of the nest it should be placed back in the nest. Sometimes females will detect an unhealthy nestling and toss it out of the nest.
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Hummingbirds are polygynous; males interact with females only to breed and provide no parental care. Females are responsible for nest building, incubation and post-hatching parental care. Males attract mates using song, iridescent plumage and dramatic display flights. Depending on the species, males display at lekking grounds, defended territories, traditional display grounds, or singing posts.
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[One] display consists of the vertical flight, up and down, of two hummingbirds, male or female, facing each other, accompanied by twittering sounds (figure 2). Sometimes one bird is at the highest point while the other is at the lowest point. When one of the birds is male and the other female, it may be a courtship behavior. Both male and female rubythroats ... perform a short back-and-forth horizontal flight; this may be courtship or aggression, depending on the circumstance (figure 3).
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When female hummingbirds want to nest they will hover around trees, bushes, plants, and people looking for nest sites and nesting material. The birds will try out nest spots by sitting on objects before they start the nest construction. They may approach keepers or the public searching for hair, strings from clothes, and sweater yarn to use in their nests. You should provide the birds with animal hair, plant down, clothes dryer lint, cotton, lamb's wool, feathers, bark, moss, lichens, and spider webbing.
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Hummingbirds will defend their territory against invading birds. The female lays on average 2 eggs into a nest woven out of materials like lichen and spider webs. Check out the tiny hummingbird nest on display at the Roxborough State Park’s visitor center.
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Once the act has been completed, the female hummingbird lays the eggs and then hatches them on her own. She usually chooses a location that is not in a most favorable feeding area, opting for peace and quiet, even if it means relying upon insects as the staple of her diet. The eggs are tiny, the size of jellybeans, and the average incubation is 16 days. Usually only two eggs are laid, a day apart, and the mother uses techniques to warm and shade them to maintain a constant 90 degree temperature until they are ready to hatch. It takes a little more than three weeks for hummingbird babies to grow feathers and reach their adult size, while their bills reach full size a bit later. At four weeks, the birds are ready to survive on their own.
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