Tranquility Computers

So I recently managed to acquire a family of fruit flies in the house (thanks to a rotting watermelon I left in the trash can too long). As it turns out, they are immune to ant and roach pesticides (among other things). I was afraid they would never leave! But after a bit of web searching, I ran across a little discussion thread talking about this very subject. Sure, the first thing anyone should do with a fruit fly problem is clean up. But once they’re in the house, that’s that. I didn’t really want to use any sort of pesticide since I have 5 cats in the house (which usually takes care of the larger “pest problems”). So I read a suggestion to take a jar, put in some rotting fruit and some water, and add a paper cone to the top (pointing inward) with a tiny pin hole just large enough for the fruit flies to enter. They will be able to enter but not leave. Well, this seemed just too simple but I thought I’d give it a try at least…

24 hrs later, not a single fruit fly in the house that wasn’t in that jar!! Simply amazing little trick that cost me nothing that I didn’t have laying around the house already. Thank you interwebs!!

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Well it took about twice as long as we had expected but after about 4 weeks the two hummingbird eggs finally hatched. Thanks again to my wonderfully 2″ taller wife, we got this magnificent shot of the nest and the two baby hummingbirds patiently waiting for mommy to return home with some food. We’re going to try and get some video of the feeding but I don’t know if we’ll actually have the time / patience to pull it off…

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Just for an idea of scale, this nest is about the size of a golf ball. Their beaks protruding from the top of the nest is barely noticeable unless you’re looking for it! Otherwise, it just looks like more material from the nest. We’ve noticed that the mother leaves for extended periods of time in the morning and then spends the afternoon and all night sitting on the nest. We’ll keep the pics coming as things progress!!

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Well it’s been about a week since mama completed her nest and made a career out of keeping her eggs warm and tended for. I anticipate less than a week until they hatch. The nest has gotten larger and she now spends a great deal of time there holding on as the wind will toss this branch around a bit at times. I haven’t been able to verify if she’s using the feeder Mom and I installed last weekend but I do think that the level of fluid has gone down (and not by evaporation). Unfortunately, I haven’t been home that much this week to keep an eye on her and her activities to see if she’s actually using the feeder though (I sure hope she is). Here are some additional pics:

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Here’s a close-up shot of the nest from the other side. You can see how the choice of location is actually pretty typical of hummingbirds. They like to be out of the sun, high up so the shakes and rodents can’t reach them, and have some shelter from the rain and wind. Nice job mama! You can also see our feeder placed relatively close to her nest.

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This shot wasn’t that easy to take (let alone get in focus). I took the opportunity when mama was out to try and get a shot of the inside of the nest without disturbing the branch. I can see one large egg but the last time I looked (about 10 days ago) we saw what looked like 3 jellybean-sized eggs. I guess we’ll see when they hatch how many there actually were…