The hummingbirds are back! It's really and truly spring when I can come home and sit on the porch in the evening and there's enough daylight left to watch the hummingbirds flit about. I could watch them for hours!Ours are savage little things, and they battle it out over the feeders like tiny winged gladiators, even though there is more food in those feeders than all of those little birds could eat in a day. I would say in a week, but in the summer we fill the feeders every 48 hours, so that wouldn't be entirely accurate. Still, theres' clearly no food shortage, but that doesn't matter to the birds! They knock one another off the feeders, and dive at other birds. We have multiple feeders, and we really can't put out any more, so they'll just have to continue fighting it out.
Last year we had a white hummingbird that hung out for several weeks. We'd see her (him? it?) several times a day, and then one day she just stopped coming by. She was so easily visible, though, that you could see her fly away into the trees, so I'm sure some predator took advantage of that. It's sad, but what do you do?
So far this year we've only seen males at the feeders, but the females will be here soon. Let the games begin!
10 comments:
I have two feeders outside the kitchen window and the antics of these tiny creatures tickles me! They are so greedy! Hope you enjoy the weekend.
When I wear red and sit on our deck, they will fly right up to me!! They are such lovely birds!!
I have such an awful time keeping the ants out of my feeders!!
Jen
I've been enjoying them at our feeder too! We've had girls and boys.
I like the way you describe them as gladiators. Sounds like fun to watch them.
My favorite little bird!!! Lucky you to get them this early. We won't see any up here till the first week of May. I always put my feeders out 10 days before that though, hoping I'll get lucky:)
The white hummingbird you saw was most probably an albino hummingbird. This is not a seperate species of hummingbird and they are quite rare.
As sad is it is to realize, it could be that this hummingbird has died. Typically, albino hummingbirds don't live long. This is because they often have poor eyesight and more brittle feathers then other hummingbirds and this causes them to have a reduced flying ability.
If you would like much more information about hummingbirds, please click the links below. The sites contain many articles about hummingbirds, video clips about hummingbirds, an informative tips booklet on hummingbirds, and much more.
Click Here To Visit About HummingbirdsHummingbirds For Mom
Mildred, they are very greedy, aren't they? :)
Jen, I've never tried that, but I think I might one of these days! We don't have ants but we do have wasps. :(
Susie, I saw a female today, so the girls are here.
Daisy, they are fun to watch.
Flydragon, we put our feeders up early, too, just in case.
Zoe Ann, thank you for the great information! I think ours was leucystic as opposed to albino because s/he had a dark beak and dark eyes. Still, she was fun to watch!
Terri
I love hummingbirds.
I put a feeder out in our tree and lo and behold... we had some hummingbirds show up.... sooooo cool.
We have like 3-4 that come regularly and they are so cool to watch.
At my uncles place in NY he had some vines in a tree by the kitchen window and when we stayed there on vacation I would stand at the sink and watch this emerald green irredescent hummingbird. He was gorgeous!!!
And we'd see a baby one... soooo tiny .... vivid blue and purple... beautiful!!
WOLFIE
I hear hummers eat a lot of "sketrs" too. Another good reason we should put out an extra feeder or two.
It's still too cold here for the Hummers. We usually don't get any until at least May.
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