A month or two ago, I noticed some hummingbirds flitting in and out of a tree by the street. After watching for a bit, I figured out that there was a nest, so we decided to hang our feeders up. True to form, I dug them out of the garage and H cleaned them up. Then I ignored them sitting on the counter for weeks.
Two weeks ago, I finally got around to filling and hanging them. We had one hummingbird within a day, and by the end of day three, we had three or four birds. Then five. Seven. Ten. It turns out that all-you-can-eat buffets for hummingbirds are REALLY popular here, because we now have somewhere between fifteen and twenty of them roaring around our yard any time the sun is up.
Twenty tiny, angry, chirpy, squawking, mean little dickheads, all intent on staking THIS buffet as theirs. Twenty angry little iridescent feathered demons, all hopped up on sugar.
When we go out to hop in the hot tub, they’ll come along and get in our faces to see if our red noses are flowers. (Not the nectar you’re looking for, birb.) When I refill the feeders, they wait for me and will go so far as to try to eat AS I’m hanging it. They’ve clearly sized us up and decided that if push comes to shove, they can take us. They’re probably right.
Hummingbirds are fiercely territorial. Each feeder has a dominant bird that will stake it out. Which bird claims which feeder for the day shuffles sometimes, but every feeder always has a big boy on top, playing traffic cop and running off other birds. The problem? Two feeders are right in front of the front window, and our birds have become functionally fearless.
Have you ever seen a quarter ounce bird punk a twenty pound cat with the avian equivalent of “YOU WANT SOME OF THIS, BITCH?” through a flimsy window screen? I have, and it’s frankly astonishing. The birds take great delight in chirping at and tormenting Oscar and Stan. The boys spend their evenings watching and dreaming of the day when they can finally silence the endless squabble outside.
If you can’t tell what’s going on, just look in top of the hanging glass feeder. He’s there, watching. Waiting. Planning.
P.S. It still blows my mind when the sun creeps down in the evening and I get rewarded with views like this. We missed Pacific sunsets terribly during our long exile in Oklahoma. I’m pleased to know that they’re just as glorious as we remembered them.
EDIT: After a lot of digging, I feel confident in saying we have a mixed group of mostly Rufous Hummingbirds and at least one female Allen’s Hummingbird with her offspring. The guys guarding the feeders are almost certainly male Rufous, but the female Allen’s has taken to sneaking long drinks at the back yard feeder.