Not pets...yet

[down_home]

We put out two Humming bird feeders, on one porch.
There are dozens or perhaps hundreds, of Humming birds in the big oaks around here. Most all of them are brown or gray. Very little color.
One has a splash of yellow but I only see it when it flies away. Another has some blue on it's head. One that seems to be a dominant male has a white band near the end of it's tail feathers.
One or two of them are pretty large for Humming birds. Several are as small as big bees.
They fly from the interior of the trees and sit on the little stems, at the base of leaves and them a 100 yard dash to the feeders.
There is no way these two feeders are supporting all these Humming birds. I can''t locate any flowers they might be feeding on though.
They seem to be getting something from the base of clussters of the oak leaves.
They seem enjoy combat. One flies toward a feeder and here come another or two and sometimes they bump chests. Sometimes they fly right over my head.
Most of the time they shy away if I'm sitting there except for a couple, including the one with a white band, on its tail feathers.
I hope to see some bright colored ones but enjoy watching these anyway. Sometimes there will be a dozen in flight around the feeders and below and on the porch.

[kickstart]

DW has feeders that stick to kitchen Windows,and feeders in the yard,she puts the feeders out in the spring when the gunners show up and start looking in the window, and she takes them down in the fall after she didn't see any for about a wk some birds leave before others so leave feeders out till you no longer see any for a while.

[down_home]

Well,may be I don't need to post again about humming birds, for a while.
I'm learning. The ones with the white bands on their tail feathers are apparently all males. The fans they make go around about as far as a turkey. they display against each other, while hovering, at the feeders. They apparently manuver wit their tail feathers too. The others, probably a ll females seem to keep their tail feathers closed. This morning I saw some emerald color on the backs of some and some blues and a little red on one. Can't see them, in te evening, usually because the feeder is up high and the sun behind them. A whole lot of them in the trees. i don't know if they've been here all along and I just now notice them because of the feeders or if the feeders have drawn them in from some distance. Saw some outside the east porch this evening. No feeders there. They darted out from the trees and maybe grabbed gnats. I don't know how they see them at a hundred feet or so. There is eally a lot of them around. Guess I'll put a feeder on the east porch too. Don't know when to bring in the feeders. I don't want to keep them here all winter. they might not survive.
Any idea how long to keep feeders out?

[down_home]

They drank the mpst popular feeder dry or almost. I manged to get it down and it smelled a bit of alcohol.
Cleaaned it good and refilled it. Tried to hang it up. I'm a mite short. They were ganging me to get at the feeder. They are not afraid, at all it appears. I've got to rig aa hook, of some kind to raise it high enough to hang bacck up.

[kickstart]

Saw a picture in birds and blooms magazine,the man had on a ballcap that he had rigged a small hummingbird feeder to the bill and they were feeding on it.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

down home wrote:
I've been wondering if I held a small red glass, of water or something if they would investigate further. I don't think the tea would be to their liking.

I'll bet they would! As a kid, I used to spread some peanut butter on the palm of my hand, then stand very still with hand outstretched - and Chickadees would land on my hand to eat the peanut butter!

[down_home]

A couple days ago one of the Hummingbirds, that spreads it's tail stopped about three foot in front of me and gave a good once over. Some of the hummingbirds don't spread their tails when flying or maneuvering around the feeders.
I had on a red shirt and ws holding a large glass of tea. The glass kinda flares at the top. For a bit it appeared he was going to challenge me or something. He flew up to the flowers and then over to the far feeder. Flew back within a couple feet of me and off the end of the porch turned hard left and out to the big oak. Today one flew up to the flowers and took a sip or something andback down to study me. I've been wondering if I held a small red glass, of water or something if they would investigate further. I don't think the tea would be to their liking.

[Murphsmom]

I have seen hummingbirds in our yard dart at a spider web and steal the insets from them. This is usually early in the year before the flowers have opened.

There are several websites that can tell you which seed combinations will attract those colorful birds. However...and that's a BIG however, I stopped feeding the birds at the feeders last spring when the local Cooper's hawk decided it was a buffet for him. He would take down the little brown birds right in the yard and tear them up on the lawn. Don't know if your falcon would think the same thing.

[down_home]

darsben wrote:
Are you sure they are not Hummingbird Moths?
They fooled us for a while

Yes, they are Humming birds. There are a couple, and I'm sure more that are rather large. Their bills which are mostly curved are much more curved and longer in these larger Hummingbirds.
The one feeder is harder for the smaller ones to feed from. The plastic flowers protrude out further. The one they most prefer has small little roosts they sit on while they sip.
I did know they ate gnats. haven't noticed any, this summer, nor mosquitoes.
I've watched a couple of the smaller ones face down bees and wasps. The bees like a sip too. The Hummingbird would get about six inches to a foot from the bee and they faced each other. I'm not sure I've seen them chase them though. the bees and wasps must be getting the message as very few come around the feeders lately. I thought their behavior of flying to leaf tips etc before screaming to the feeders was to make sure predators weren't waiting on them. We haven't seen any of the Hawks, Falcons, Eagles or anything much this summer.
I hope that one beautiful falcon comes back but leaves the Blue Birds alone. We haven't seen one Blue Jay in years either. Lots of Blue Birds this spring and last though. Ihope we can figure out what to feed them and what type feeders to use to get some of the Red Birds, jays, and Yellow Cardinals, or whatever Orange colored birds and some of the other rarely seen beautiful colored birds of the last 20 years, at our old home. Perhaps the cooling weather has shooed them back way south.

[darsben]

Are you sure they are not Hummingbird Moths?
They fooled us for a while

[Code2High]

The dull ones are females. They fly very fast so may have a food source a little way off. Also, they eat gnats, so if those are around that could be a draw.