She May Know Anna’s Hummingbirds Better Than Anyone—After Studying 350 of Their Nests in One Park

Beverly LaBelle names each year’s hummingbird mothers alphabetically, in order of when she finds them. “Nest #1 will be Abby, for example, #2 will be Brenda, and so on,” she says, looping back to A if she locates more than 26 nests. With nothing but a mirror clipped to a long stick and a keen ear, LaBelle has found more than 350 active Anna’s Hummingbird nests since 2012—likely more than any individual has ever reported, professional ornithologists included—all in her neighborhood park, Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in Portland, Oregon.

With no formal scientific background, LaBelle has gathered more than a decade of data on the birds’ preferred tree species, as well as the location, timing, success, and re-nesting efforts for each nest. The result is an incredibly detailed, long-term, DIY study that she hopes can help the tiny birds survive and thrive in an uncertain future. “All data collecting is important,” LaBelle says. “Especially in a world where the climate is changing too fast for species to recover.”

LaBelle originally visited Oaks Bottom to walk her dog. New to the city, and a beginner birder at the time, she soon learned that there was a rich, if underappreciated, ecosystem right in her neighborhood. “It was really different here back in the ‘80s,” LaBelle says. Today the refuge protects 163 acres of meadows, wetlands, and forest along the Willamette River in Southeast Portland, but four decades ago the site was unmanaged and full of trash, including 400,000 cubic feet of construction waste. 

Without initial support from the city, neighbors started clearing rubbish and clearing trails around the time LaBelle moved to Portland. “It was always here, it was always wild. It just wasn’t official,” she says. She remembers attending a cleanup event in the early ‘80s and being warned not to touch any of the many needles strewn about the park. In 1984, local naturalists posted 40 rogue “Wildlife Refuge” signs around the Bottom, and local press began referring to it as such. Eventually, the City of Portland sanctioned this work, making the park the city’s first wildlife refuge in 1988.

A fellow birder first told LaBelle in the ‘90s that Anna’s Hummingbirds nest at the refuge. “It was always very special to see a hummingbird, especially 40 years ago,” she says. “I would join birding groups, and when a hummingbird was seen, it was always the best sighting of the day.” In 2003, LaBelle found her first hummingbird nest in Oaks Bottom on her own. She returned frequently to observe and photograph the metallic green bird and other nests she spotted in the refuge. But her systemic documentation only began years later after she was reprimanded by a park worker who said she needed a permit to go off trail. Research permit secured from the city, LaBelle began to write an annual report starting in 2012, submitting it to Portland Parks and Recreation and to the Northwest Ecological Research Institute (NERI), a volunteer-run nonprofit that conducts field studies on regional flora and fauna. 

“Bev is just a super observant human being, and she’s capable of really focusing her attention,” says Char Corkran, NERI vice president. “That has become this astonishing set of data she’s collected, just out of pure love of doing it.” Corkran first met LaBelle decades ago while organizing a wildlife survey in Mt. Hood National Forest. LaBelle volunteered and was assigned a small area within the study site. The project has since wrapped, but LaBelle still visits her plot a few times each summer. “That’s a good illustration of the way Bev works,” Corkran says. “When she enjoys something and sees it as valuable, Bev just keeps doing it.” As far as Corkran can tell from published literature, LaBelle’s work with Anna’s Hummingbirds is the longest-running study of the species’ nesting habits.

“We found one together!” 

Two decades into watching nesting hummingbirds in Oaks Bottom, and after 14 years of writing reports on her observations, LaBelle’s enthusiasm shows no sign of flagging. When I meet LaBelle to walk her route on a rainy morning in early February, she brings an embroidered hummingbird baseball cap and sets off without hesitation. A retired printing industry professional, she moves through the landscapes with ease, recalling mudslides and long-gone willows chewed up and taken away by beavers—including one plant that, unfortunately, had contained an active nest. As we walk, she tells me about a young hummer that attempted to nest on a loose stick wedged precariously into a branch (didn’t work out), as well as unlikely places that successfully fledged young, including in the vines of an invasive Clematis species.

Anna’s Hummingbirds nest early in Portland, some as soon as January. Year-round residents for the past few decades, thanks to the proliferation of ornamental plants and nectar feeders, the birds collect moss, lichen, and spiderwebs to construct cup-shaped, inch-tall nests that rest on a horizontal tree branch. Their eggs are about the size of a pinky fingernail and incubate for around 16 days. Since our walk happens early in the nesting season, LaBelle has only identified a few nest sites so far this year. We stop at a point on the trail where she has seen a female potentially collecting nesting material. Just as she finishes telling me this, a hummingbird zips through, pulling at spiderwebs hanging from the trees. Then the bird flies to a moss-laden tree and lands in a tiny cup, perfectly shaped to her small body—a new nest for this year’s list. 

LaBelle looks at me, delighted. “We found one together!” I can see how this could get addicting. We watch the bird collect spiderwebs and tuck everything into place. When she leaves to collect more material, it’s almost impossible to spot the little lichen-lined nest again. LaBelle pulls out a small notepad and writes down the location, approximate nest height, and which direction the branch faces. At about 15 feet above the trail, this nest is too high for her-mirror-on-a-stick approach, so she’ll keep observing with her binoculars.

To LaBelle, watching these iridescent, gem-like birds make their nests has an almost sacred quality. “If somebody finds a nest, it is indeed a gift from the universe,” she says. Throughout our walk, we keep a safe distance once we discover a nest. Local photographers have been known to bring disruptive lighting equipment to photograph hummingbird nests, which can lead to failures. Because of this risk, LaBelle does not publicize active nest locations. “They’re very vulnerable, and they’ve got something very special underneath them, so they need to be respected,” she says. “They’re amazing little birds.” 

“Nobody’s really done this work before.” 

But with the magic also comes heartbreak. Nesting so early in the year, Anna’s Hummingbirds are particularly susceptible to Portland’s harsher weather. LaBelle’s 2024 report documented a deep freeze in the beginning of the year that killed off many birds and their nests. Last year just 5 out of 25 nests successfully fledged young, compared with 16 out of 41 in 2023. Across the first 13 years of LaBelle’s study, her identified nests had an overall success rate of 46.7 percent.

From her observations, the majority of 2025 nest failures were likely due to predation, though LaBelle also recorded nests abandoned due to poor weather or likely death of the adult female and occasional accidents, like fallen branches. The loss that hurt LaBelle the most was when a parks worker, in an effort to curb illegal camping in the park, unknowingly limbed a tree with an active nest in it. “It’s been hard, and this last year has been one of the hardest,” LaBelle says. “I’ve kind of been on the fence about continuing. But I don’t know if I can stay away.”

Recently, LaBelle and Corkran have developed a theory about some mysterious nest failures. For years LaBelle has noticed eggs or brand-new hatchlings that disappear between one day and the next, while the nest is left pristine. She wondered if squirrels could be delicately raiding the nests, but that didn’t seem likely. Then Corkran found a study from 1996 in Arizona that suggests that female Anna’s Hummingbirds become aggressive to each other when their nests are too close together. LaBelle and Corkran measured the distance between the failed Portland nests and found that some were much closer together than the nests in the Arizona study. They are considering installing trail cameras to monitor the nest sites to confirm if other female Anna’s are indeed responsible. “If we could prove it, this would be a huge discovery,” Corkran says. Not many studies, she notes, have tracked the minute developments of the species’ nests in the field, week after week, season after season, the way LaBelle does. “Nobody’s really done this work before.” 

At 72, LaBelle’s hearing is changing, and she is seeking individuals who can help continue the nest surveys. “I don’t know how to find someone who would want to make that commitment, or anyone that interested in observing nesting hummingbirds,” she says. LaBelle did not begin her nest monitoring with a specific end goal in mind, but as she and Corkran have learned in their years as community scientists, there is always value in paying attention. Sometimes it’s simply about being in the right place at the right time. The Mt. Hood wildlife survey that LaBelle contributed to all those years ago yielded unexpected results: Another volunteer discovered what turned out to be a group of Oregon spotted frogs that represent the last known population of the declining subspecies once prevalent throughout Willamette Valley. “How cool is it that we just happened to stumble upon that?” Corkran says. “There’s so many discoveries to be made.”

With its richness and length, LaBelle’s Anna’s Hummingbird study could provide new insights in the species’ nesting habits and conservation. Already she has documented a slight trend toward earlier nesting, which could be linked to higher January temperatures. She has also recorded a slight upward trend in nest success rate. In a report on LaBelle’s study for the journal of the Oregon Birding Association, Corkran hypothesized those changes could be due to the warming temperatures—meaning fewer January deep freezes to impact early-nesting birds—or to females spreading out their nesting territories to avoid crowding. 

What sustains LaBelle, though, is the joy of finding the next nest. She says it feels like she’s discovering secrets about these special birds. She encourages anyone who finds joy in the natural world, or in a particular species, to do what she has done and let their enthusiasm lead the way. “I highly recommend that they follow their hearts and interests and just observe,” LaBelle says. “That could turn into possibly finding out something that no one else has ever found.”