Hummingbirds don't like to share the feeder. They'll spend as much time chasing off others than they do sipping sugar water, even though there's plenty to go around.Rob beckoned me over to the kitchen window early Thursday morning and told me to watch. He pointed out a hummingbird sitting on the pole for the feeder. Not eating - just sitting there. As soon as another hummingbird approached, this one chased it away. Then returned to the perch.
Rob said he'd been at it since at least 6:30am.
The hummingbird feeder has a lot of traffic during the day. As I took photos (which you can see are mostly blurry - they move so fast!) he chased off at least a half dozen hummingbirds that came anywhere near the feeder.
I walked in nearly two hours later and he was still at it! He finally gave up and left some time before lunch. What a tenacious little bird! I wonder if he actually used the feeder at all, or just occupied himself chasing off the others.
I love the hummingbirds - we don't get very many here (the Front Range of Colorado), but just this morning one was at our feeder! Sounds you had fun watching them, too!
ReplyDeleteI like watching them but there have been no fights as there are so few of them they seem to take turns. Or it's the same one... who knows!
ReplyDeleteMy uncle saw a lot of them when he lived in Maine. Apparently he was in some sort of flyway up near Sebago Lake. He solved the "chase the other birds away" problem, by putting out more feeders slightly apart in his yard. At one point, just before migration, he said he saw more than 50 in one day.
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