Around noon I went out to the backyard to water the plants (I know it wasn’t an ideal time but it was the time I had). It was a pretty warm day for San Francisco and as I held the hose, a hummingbird approached. It seemed to want to cool off, so I held the hose and water steady. She flirted a bit with the stream of water, 5 feet away, then 4 feet, then back to 6 feet. She gradually got closer until she was just two feet away, feeling the spray. Gorgeous, but her feathers weren’t as bright as a males. We studied each other. Then she got just a little too close to the water and disappeared. I immediately pointed the hose in another direction and spotted her among the plants. She scolded the water as she righted herself the flew away.
Ah, what a nice moment! And a good reminder that it’s time to change out my feeder nectar. I haven’t been outside as often to be scolded by them for not refilling fast enough. They have big personalities for such tiny birds.
I love hummingbirds. They’re pretty tough guys for being so little. I’ve had them dive bomb me out on the trail in the canyonlands…what a cool sound when you’re out there all alone.
We have a resident population of hummingbirds at the complex where I live, lots of people have feeders out. What’s kind of weird is seeing them them pick off tiny bugs as they fly along a branch or a railing–I didn’t realize that they were carnivorous!
I have to change my feeder at night or else I get attacked by hummingbirds. Hmm… “Attacked by Hummingbirds” would’ve made a good user name… oh well. I’ve had hummers fly right up into my face when I go out by the feeder during the day, one checked out a flower on my shirt as well.
The best hummingbird experience I had was when I did try to change the feeder during the day, and a male hummer flew up and landed on the feeder while I was holding it. He paid me absolutely no attention, just perched and fed for a minute. I didn’t even want to breathe, I didn’t want to scare the little guy.
Anyone heard the odd little chattering noise they make? They can be quite loud. My cat freaks out when he hears that noise and chatters right back at them.
We have 2 hummingbird feeders out all summer (one they share with the orioles early in the year), and when the feeders are empty or the nectar is less than perfectly fresh, several of them come up to the window and look in at us. We’ve taken to teasing them like they’re impatient children clamoring for cookies.
I love when the males start to swoop back and forth in their feeding area. I assume that’s part of their mating display, but they look like they’re swinging in those great arcs just for the fun of it.
I love when you get a few of them together and there’s one extremely territorial male. He’ll see another hummingbird land at the feeder and chase him off. Meanwhile another hummingbird comes up and eats. The territorial bird gets back and chases that one off. Meanwhile the first one he chased off comes back and eats. This repeats until the other birds have had their fill. Finally the bird who’s been a jerk gets to eat and you just know he’s so smug about having the thing to himself even though he’s spent like 10 times the effort without really accomplishing anything.
My computer is sitting on a table right at a picture window. Last Summer there was one male hummingbird that would come right up to the window and hover, looking in at me. I don’t have feeders out or anything but there are lots of flowers. It always made me grin uncontrolably.
I thought I was the only one to have been attacked by a 1/8 ounce creature .
I had a camera set on a tripod up close to a feeder, taking close-up pictures of the hummers.
When I set the flash off, one bird who had been eating was quite taken aback. He backed up a few inches, looked at me, flitted to the side of me with a look of terrible indignation - you could tell - and then stabbed me twice in the temple with his beak and zoomed away.
I may be the only person in history to have a hummingbird draw blood from in a fight!
I had five feeders going at once when I was in the woods last Summer. As already described, they try and monopolize each feeder. Quite a few dogfights over them. I suppose that it makes sense to try and keep much a good food source for yourself.
Our summer cottage always had hordes of hummingbirds around and they got quite territorial. One day, in late summer, the yellowjackets discovered our feeder, which was a gravity tube affair. One of the male rufous hummingbirds took grave exception to the wasps invading his turf, hovered about two feet out, took aim and literally pushed the offending wasp up the tube and into the main reservoir. He then casually drank his fill and took off. At the end of the day, we counted six wasps in the reservoir.
Another story - our son, then two, was out on the cottage deck wearing his absolutely favourite, never-take-them-off, bright red shoe and socks. He was also wearing his favourite t-shirt, which had a bright red collar. There was a bit of a commotion on the deck, the boy was shouting “Ding birds, ding birds!”. I went out to see what was happening and there was our son, arms covering his head, being dive-bombed by about a dozen hummers investigating his shoes, socks and t-shirt collar. He’s now an adult and still flinches when a hummingbird is around.
My mom was out on the back porch reading with her bare feet on an ottoman when she noticed a hummingbird buzzing around her feet. She had red nail polish.
We just bought a house that has a tree right outside the kitchen window, blocking the view of the backyard. As soon as we moved in, we said we were going to get rid of it - then it blossomed. We’ve had tons of butterflies and hummingbirds. I was sitting here the other day drinking my coffee, surfing the dope, and one came right up to the window to peek in.