Awaiting the Young

     The Delphiniums stood tall and straight as arrows but within 7 days, 2 storms managed to flatten half of them in the garden. Wind and rain beat many of them to the ground while others hung saturated with water. The morning after the second rain I was really surprised to see that some Delphiniums had survived.  The timing was perfect this year as Delphiniums were just about in full bloom just at the time the first young hummingbirds were to start appearing in our garden.  Any day and we should see our first young.  One female started to increase her frequency to our yard which is a good indication the young are much larger and requiring more food. A few males would show up and squabble about who gets which feeder, while Ziggy would fly up in each of their faces as if to say, "what ya doin'?" They are all pretty familiar with Ziggy. He has no fear and pretty much sets all the rules. Some squeaking was happening and would alert our attention, until finally we spotted a young Ruby-throat.  Although many of the Delphiniums were flipped upside down, it made no difference to this young male.  Right side up or on their heads, he didn't care.  His attention was so focused on the Delphiniums that feeders weren't even on his radar.  At one point he did approach a feeder with extreme caution.  He flew up with tail feathers flared, but didn't have the courage to yet sample it.  One benefit to him not knowing the feeders yet is that he gave me plenty of photo opportunities in the flowers.
     This young male was not one of ours.  He's one of those that I would consider a random sighting.  He was raised in a region that didn't have many food choices, so he moved around.  When he spotted our field of Delphiniums the choice was made easy for him.  An endless supply of food encouraged him to stay right where he was.  We spotted him on July 20th.  He was very capable of a bit of push back with our current males, but not wise enough to know he had 10 nectar filled feeders available to him.
Juvenile Ruby-throated hummingbird. July 20, 2017. N.E. of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. 

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