Bird Droppings: Hummers!

RANDOM INFO AND RANTS ABOUT BIRDS!

Last week we talked about Peckers, this week is all about Hummers.  In Western Washington we have two types of hummingbirds, Anna’s & Rufous.  The Anna’s are year round residents while the Rufous are transient and only here for the spring and summer.   We have two hummingbird feeders on our deck just outside our windows so we can watch them feed.  It is a source of constant entertainment and aerial battles.  They are very possessive of their feeders, especially the Anna’s that claim a feeder as their main source of food.  Note: DO NOT PUT FOOD COLORING IN YOUR HUMMINGBIRD FOOD & CHANGE THE NECTAR OFTEN! In the peak of spring and summer, we will have to refill the feeders every couple days.  I joke to my wife that we should claim them as dependents since we are buying 10lb bags of sugar constantly!   It may also surprise some of you that hummingbirds also eat bugs.  In fact, they consume thousands of the bugs we hate!  Flies, gnats, aphids, mites, spiders, mosquitoes, and even parasitic wasps are all supplements to their favorite diet of nectar.  We have a Lilac at the edge of our deck that is the favorite perch for our resident hummers so they can keep an eye out for any non-family members that may try to encroach on their territory.  I have only seen a hummingbird nest once but didn’t get any photos, it was made of spider webs and about the size of a quarter.  These birds fascinate me and are a favorite subject for my photography though they are a challenge to capture with the speeds they move.  My wife has helped my cause by planting tons of the favorite plans of hummingbirds throughout our yard.

This first shot is our old feeder, we had to get rid of it because the bees and wasps could also feed out of it.

In honor of our new post title, this is the only image I have ever captured of a hummingbird pooping!

This is Hogger, the king of the Anna’s. He will cut a bitch that tries to feed off his feeder when he is around. DON’T fuck with Hogger! He even tries to chase me off the deck.

The male’s are the most colorful but you can only tell with certain lights and certain angles. The same bird can look completely different from different angles.

Summer is the best time to catch them actively feeding in the yard.

This is Mrs. Hogger

They do a good job of being camoflauged in the fall colors but they fear no other birds.

It always surprises me when I see them out in the dead cold of winter.

That’s it for this week’s Bird Droppings. Thanks for the name suggestion HammerZeitgeist and all the other great suggestions. Do you want to tell us about your favorite hummers? Any other bird suggestions? Enjoy your Sunday.

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20 Comments

  1. Hummingbirds are my favorite bird followed by Blue Jays. I have three hummingbird feeders in the front yard and I’m having to refill them every two days. It’s amazing how much those little birds can eat!

    Here in California we have the Anna’s, Allen’s, Rufous, and Black-Chinned Hummingbirds. We also have the Costa’s which I don’t think I’ve encountered in person.

  2. hummers?

    ah now theres a thing of beauty…if utility was personified and didnt give a fuck about fuel consumption..this would be it
    also…those are some pretty birbs

  3. Beautiful photos, @Loveshaq! We didn’t see many hummingbirds this summer and I don’t know why. We put the feeders in the same spot as last year, made our own nectar, no dye, changed it weekly. We didn’t get a single one until late July and very few the rest of the summer and fall. It may have been too hot for them. We have a lot of crows, jays, and hawks in the neighborhood. But we did last year too and it didn’t seem to matter. I sure missed them. Thanks for sharing yours.

  4. I never saw a hummingbird until we moved to NM, and then they were all over the place.  Living east of the Mississippi, we only get the ruby throated hummers, but our local population has been increasing over the years thanks to Mrs. Butcher’s diligence with the feeders.

  5. Someone on twitter asked the question – “What would be the most frightening animal on the planet if it was 10x bigger in size?”
    Jason Ward, celebrity birder replied immediately “Hummingbirds”
    I love hummingbirds too, Loveshaq! You’re photos are amazing! I try to get good snaps of mine – but you seem to have the touch.
    I had about four or five Ruby Throated ones this year on three feeders. The males left in August and the females left in September. 
     
    Juvenile Male just getting in his gorget feathers


     


     
    Here is one in torpor on one of our feeders. 

    • On the LeBatard show on ESPN he has the Zoo Miami guy on each week that always says, pound for pound the hummingbird is the toughest animal alive.  I have seen them chase off big birds, even crows.  They are fearless little creatures.  

  6. I am in Illinois so I’ve never seen them in the winter. But I love them, too. So much personality. SO MUCH YELLING. Doesn’t matter how many spigots the feeder has, they’re so territorial they chase each other off, and other birbs, too. Like that chickadee doesn’t want your sugar water bro. My favorite thing is when they just stop and sit in the bush. They move so fast it’s almost as magical to see them resting. And mine seem to poop every time they eat so I have tons of accidental poo pics. 
     
    On Instagram, i follow this hummingbird photographer: @thehummingbirdphotographer and a couple months ago she had her pics turned into a coloring book, but I don’t know if it is still available.

  7. That “yelling” they do is usually how I locate them to take pictures since they are so fast and hide so well.  I have a friend that is losing his hearing so can’t hear higher pitched sounds & he cannot hear a hummingbird speak.  I love hearing that sound.
     

  8. I love hummingbirds! One of the very simple things I did this summer which made a huge impact on my sanity was I had a small feeder I hung off the front porch that I could see from the couch. I had so much delight watching the little folks feed and fight each other over the feeder. 

    Next summer I am going to put out another feeder so they can have more options. With them being so territorial, if the other feeder is only about 6 feet away (that’s where the other hook is), will it just be a thing of one being King of Both Feeders or do you think the extra option will be another bird’s territory?

    • Mrs. Butcher has five feeders that she puts out.  Three of which connect to each other so she has them together in a stack.  The other two are on either side of the house, with the stack of three on the side.  Each location is about 15 feet apart from the others, but they also aren’t in line of sight with each other, so we’ve not seen a hummer on one feeder go chase off one on another feeder.

    • Our two feeders are about 10 feet apart and Hogger will defend both.  I notice in the dead of summer when we have tons of flower options too, sometimes we get 2 or more birds feeding at the same time.  This is pretty rare though.  We even tried having one on the other side of the house and it seemed like Hogger was still the bully of the area and tried to defend both feeders.  I don’t know if Anna’s are more likely to behave like this, I do notice that the transient ones are more skittish to sit at the feeders, they usually won’t land and feed while hovering and weaving.

  9. Awesome photos. I put up a feeder last year and was surprised by how many Ruby Throats ended up coming. I planted a native Honeysuckle last year, and this year it started blossoming a lot, and they go there to feed, which led me to putting in couple more.
     
    I don’t know if they’re suitable West of the Rockies, but for anyone to the East the variety is Lonicera Sempervirens. It’s tough as hell, happy in crummy soil and during dry times, and it throws off big clusters of red and orange flowers. It’s supposed to eventually climb about ten feet high, but supposedly once they’re established they can be pruned back a lot. And they’re not supposed to be invasive like the Japanese kind.

  10. When I was growing up there was an old timey general store/tourist trap about an hour away that we would roadtrip to visit in the summertime. Just to buy a soda & some old fashioned candy, and windowshop the overpriced antiques and vendor booths (& to see the many shop cats). One of their attractions was the literal HUNDREDS of hummingbirds around a dozen or so feeders on all the porches and patios. It was really magical to visit as an 8 year old girl. 

  11. Several years ago we had a hummingbird build a nest right in front of our sliding glass door on a string of patio lights. We had never seen a nest before, much less the young that followed.
     

     

     
    Unfortunately, we didn’t really try to ID the type of hummingbird, and it doesn’t seem likely that the photos are good enough for someone who knows these guys to do so.

    • Wow!  That’s amazing!  I would love to find one of our hummingbird nests but they seem to hide them pretty well.  We think they are in the Arborvitae but you could never find them in there.

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