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baby humingbird question (1 Viewer)

blue pilot

New member
hi all.. new guy.

i have a hummingbird who has nested and hatched a couple of babies in the past few weeks. i've been taking a couple of pics a day just to document the event. unfortunately, one of the babies was taken by a scrub jay a few days ago, and while the second baby was left, i've been noticing something strange about its neck area.

can anyone tell me if this looks normal?
IMG_1635-800.jpg


thanks alot!
 
Last edited:
Yes, that's normal. It is the crop you're seeing, which is a sac in the neck where the food is stored before going to the stomach. On baby birds, this is obvious as they have fewer feathers so you can see the skin. When they are well fed, it bulges like in your picture - it's a sign that it's doing well.

It looks like it's not far off fledging now, so i would leave it alone and not disturb it with any more pictures - when they are close to leaving the nest they can sometimes leave too early if they are disturbed.
 
Poecile said:
Yes, that's normal. It is the crop you're seeing, which is a sac in the neck where the food is stored before going to the stomach. On baby birds, this is obvious as they have fewer feathers so you can see the skin. When they are well fed, it bulges like in your picture - it's a sign that it's doing well.

It looks like it's not far off fledging now, so i would leave it alone and not disturb it with any more pictures - when they are close to leaving the nest they can sometimes leave too early if they are disturbed.


ok, great. i'll take pics from farther way. i've just been taking really close-up pics because i wasn't sure how aware it was of its surroundings until the last couple of days when it began to sort of hunker down when it sees the camera.

thanks so much for the info!
 
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