Ruby-throated Hummer
I don’t know if it was poo or pee. More on that in a bit.
I love hummingbirds more than any other bird. They are so cool. No other bird can hover in place like a tiny helicopter. They can go 63 miles per hour in a dive and they sound like a huge bee. Plus they are so little. About the length of your index finger and weighing an astonishing 1/8th of an ounce.
Perfect little creatures.
They can even fly backwards.
We have always fed the “Hummers†at the Rising ranch. But until this year we never got more than a few. For years I dutifully filled the light bulb shaped feeder with the pricey red stuff that I bought at the feed store. A few of the little guys would come to visit but not many.
This year I followed the advice of the long-suffering wife’s sister and made my own syrup for the feeder. It’s pretty simple. A four to one ratio of sugar and water boiled to dissolve the sugar does the trick.
Within hours of setting up the new food we were overrun with the buzzers.
I was overjoyed! For the first time we had the males fighting over the
feeder. Females would tank up like little pigs, eating so much that when they left the feeder they had trouble gaining altitude.
I changing the feed one day I removed the feeder for a few minutes. The hummers were in a blind panic.
Where did it go?
They hovered where it was supposed to be, flew in circles and generally acted like they were starving.
After seeing a few fights between males I was told that multiple feeders would end the hummer wars.
Of course I went too far and at one point I had four feeders up. Domino’s sugar stock went up.
I have settled on two main feeders on the porch by the bar-b-q cooker and one by the kitchen window.
Our neck of the woods is the exclusive territory of the Ruby-throated hummingbird. The males have the red throat and we seem to get a lot more females at the feeder.
They have absolutely no fear of me and routinely gas up while I am cooking burgers on the grill. With a wing beat rate up to 80 per second they sound like a bee on steroids.
I have not had good luck getting a picture. I have a crappy digital camera (it’s actually a video camera that takes stills) and by the time I get one in the viewfinder they take off at 65mph.
From our kitchen I have a clear view from my place at the table of the two main feeders.
The other day a fine specimen was hovering between the two feeders. As I watched it took a dump. Or maybe a whiz. How could you tell? There was no doubt that it pushed something out of it’s exhaust vent. A little silver colored stream.
I have never heard anyone else say they have seen a Hummingbird go.
Look up Hummingbird shit on Google and you will get some interesting sites, none of which have anything to do with what comes out of the rear of a hummer. Hummingbird Poo gets you a very nice blog from a single Mom in Texas somewhere but she only says “No one ever said watch out for the Hummingbird poo.â€
So I feel kinda special.
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Go back to today’s Blog post for 2/11/11
