The Birds

No, not the Alfred Hitchcock horror movie, the only hummingbirds here in the northeast, the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. And we have lots of them this year. 

My former neighbor fed them like crazy, and had multiple feeders around his house with lots of customers. When they moved away the replacements can't be bothered with feeding (readers of my former blog will recall fellow blogger Mr. Garabaldi named the wife "Bitchy McBitchy Bitchface" and for good reason). Bonus for me, because the little devils have all moved down to my house. 

Ruby Throated Hummingbird pair. Male on the left, female on the right. No gender mental illness here.

 

They are bold and fearless for such tiny creatures. We sit on our front porch where the feeders are, and they fly all around us as though we aren't there. The first time we experienced this was in 2002 on a trip out west and we stopped in Kanab, Utah at the Best Friends Animal Society sanctuary. The main building was a ranch style that had a front porch down the entire length. Every 6 feet or so was a hummingbird feeder and there were swarms of them buzzing and dive bombing the patrons. It takes a little getting used to, but it is really cool. The other day, I was just standing outside my basement door nowhere near the feeders, and a curious male flew right up and hovered less than 3 feet from my face for several seconds checking me out before he flew away. Several times a season they end up trapped in my garage because they think they can take the shortcut to the feeders by coming in the roll up door and going out the window, which unfortunately is closed. Then they can't figure out to go out the big giant open door. Its worse if the fluorescent lights are on because it messes up their vision. I'll shut the lights off and wait a while, and sometimes they'll get out on their own. Other times they need assistance. I learned very early on there is only one way to capture and release them, and that is by hand. Of course, they tend to go up high and hover in between the joist, so I have to get up on a ladder to perform the rescue. They will totally avoid any kind of net, but if you slowly approach them from behind with your bare hand while they are in flight, you can encircle them with your fingers, gently hold onto them and let them go outside. They weigh almost nothing.

As the weather has warmed they are very active from just after sunrise until dark. The feeders we have hold a good amount of sugar water and are made so that the proportion of  sugar to water is foolproof to mix. Fill the compartment with sugar, and the reservoir to the line with boiling water and swish it around. The feeders are clear poly-carbonate so they are easily cleaned and dishwasher safe, but they normally just need a rinsing. I have them suspended on monofilament fishing line to keep the ants out. Ants can't navigate fishing line, and the holes for the hummingbird beaks are too small for bees to get in. From now until the end of summer when they migrate south, I will be refilling the feeders every couple of days.

This morning they were going bonkers. I grabbed my Nikon D5600 with my 70-300mm telephoto and started shooting. Below are what I feel are my best shots.

A female perched in my budding Rose O'Sharon

A solitary female at the red feeder

A pair of females at the blue feeder

Most of the feeding birds seem to be females, and they aggressively enforce who gets to feed and when. The photo above is unusual for me to have two girls at once sharing a feeder, but I believe until the flowers really start blooming and there is more food available elsewhere, it will be tolerated. My wife put some flowers out back in pots and the window box on our deck, the Bleeding Heart still has blooms on it, and the Azalea just finished. That is where I had seen the males mostly feeding although they will come to the feeders as well.