One more bump for the birds.

Has anyone else noticed increased activity at the feeders, around the yard? They have been all over the place in the last few days. We have two, if not three hummers. Could they be fattening themselves up for the flight south in a month or two?

Yesterday, while working in the flower garden, one was right near me. I could hear it's little chirping sound, and I even saw his feet as he rested on the feeder. They do have feet, in case anyone was wondering.

 

Same here, Lainey. I've had lots of them again, and they emptied my two big feeders in a couple days. I too figured they are on their journey south. In the spring they share much more at the feeders but now they spend more time fighting over them. I like when they hang out together so I can get photos of them.

 

Great photos Lainey. How close were you to the feeder?

 

I'd say I was about 4 feet away from them, probably more. I did a little cropping of the pics.

 

 

The hummers have been going crazy. I KNOW I have three of them (two females one male) and they are now fighting over the feeders, and all out there at once. It's to watch them chase each other off. Until recently, they seemed to "take turns" at the feeders. Now it's a battle.

Do we have any official bird people here who can tell me why this is?

 

I started the thread - does that count?

It's just their natural behavior. Check the section on fighting here:

http://www.hummingbirdworld.com/h/behavior.htm

Apparently they're more prone to fight when there's plenty of food around.

 

Thanks. We just found it odd that their behavior changed in the last couple of days. The same feeders are still out there, as well as the flowers. There's plenty to go around.

I wish we had more of them coming to visit.

 

We refilled our feeders when I got home from work this afternoon and I think we've reinforced the theory about more intense fighting when there's plenty of food.

It's been like watching a WWI newsreel this evening. We've had 20 or more birds trying to get to 4 feeders. I got some pictures I may post tomorrow but it's almost impossible to get shots of what you see with your eyes - they're just moving too fast.

 

Two summers ago we were drifting across the lake in our boat. My wife saw something moving in the water a few yards away. We came about and it was a humming bird struggling to stay afloat.

We came back beside it and my wife scooped it up in her baseball cap.

We got a small towel and wrapped it up, with just it's little head showing. After it had a little while to warm up we took off the towel and it just sat in the hat, almost an hour, looking at us and stretching it's wings. Then it stood up, looked around and took off on it's way.

I wish we'd had a camera with us.

Willinathen