How the heck do you get them all to share feeders? Our Ruby Throats are territorial as hell and either won’t come when another is there, or will chase each other away, sometimes pretty agressively.
Are you on a migration path and they behave differently when traveling?
I didn’t get round to it this year, but I so want to make a hummingbird bath:
David Letterman’s crew interviewed this guy at a nature park 3 blocks from my home.
source
I think there might be some patent infringement.
Is this Stan Lee’s brother?
Funny, I’ve never seen them in the same room.
The Stan moves in mysterious ways.
I have ruby throats too and they do not share; one usually tries to claim the feeder and sits in a nearby tree and keeps an eye on the thing, for a while, anyway. Hard to tell them apart, though you can notice behavior differences, so who knows how often the guard changes.
The Audubon people really need to look into name tags for birds so you can really tell them apart, and def know when the same bird manages to make it all the way back from migration.
Yes, you have to observe them to tell them apart: How they land, which perch they use, how they look around when feeding.
I’m wondering if they have different behaviors depending on if they’re migrating or settled in an area for a while.
When settled, every flower has a refresh rate of nectar, and it’s been found that hummingbirds are good at keeping a running tally of when they checked a flower and how long until it’s worth visiting again. Another hummingbird feeding in their territory would throw off their tally and waste a lot of effort checking empty flowers. (I’d be pissed off too!) It makes sense to be territorial.
When migrating, they’re not going to be in the same place long enough to worry about nectar refresh, and probably grab it as they can. Being territorial would be wasted effort.
That seems reasonable, but how to test it?
Consistency. When there is a constant source of food in one spot, eventually they congregate on that spot. If you put out multiple feeders in one spot, the congregation gets bigger over time. The feeders need to be refilled as soon as they are empty or they get funky and the hummers will sour on your feeding spot. I use a small amount of bleach from a spray bottle each time I clean (rinse thoroughly!) and refill to help avoid the funk (yeast & bacteria).
We live in Sonoma county, about 12 miles from the coast.
This takes patience, it may take a full year to build a population that comes day after day. I have come to believe (anecdotal evidence) that once you start this process of feeding them all the time, you are actually creating more birds than would be there otherwise. Therefore, if you slack off and forget to refill some of the birds die. It’s a responsibility at that point. They generally eat every ten minutes! I have read they can’t last without eating for more than 20 minutes. Side benefit: they eat hundreds of mosquitos & gnats a day!
I will try to make a video, the hummers fight constantly while they feed and it’s quite entertaining!
I had not known that about the flower refresh rate: I thought it had to do with the generally brief time some flowers are in bloom. V interesting.
Mating and nesting would also of course add another wrinkle to behavior, though from what I understand, males may stake out bird feeders looking for females, but also at times defend the feeders against them?
Our hummingbirds (we have the moths, too! I love them) will try to guard the feeder from a nearby tree, but then two of them will get into a high speed dogfight and a third will zoom in and drink her fill.
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