Anyone get hummingbirds on their tomato cages?

GanjaJack

GanjaJack

Well-Known Member
This little guy comes and hangs out for most of the day, rain or shine. He sits there starting at about 4am and then bobs his head back and forth looking around cleaning;g his wings, stretching them out… we do have a feeder hanging under the eaves of the porch and we get tons of other hummingbirds , but, he’s wicked cool. He stays and hangs outs,
 

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HydoDan

HydoDan

Well-Known Member
The babies are about 3/4 size with a shorter beak and are mostly grey.. Cute little buggers but they are very aggressive
with each other and fight over the feeders... Cool to watch 15+ birds try to feed with only 9 holes..
Humming bird wars..
Just before dark they call a truce and actually share the feeder holes.. It only takes one bird to break the truce and the war is on again... Cheap entertainment!! Don't have any baby pics but this is what they look like.
.Hummingbird-babies2.5pi.jpgHummers-2 5-6-14.jpg
 
GanjaJack

GanjaJack

Well-Known Member
HydoDan said:
The babies are about 3/4 size with a shorter beak and are mostly grey.. Cute little buggers but they are very aggressive
with each other and fight over the feeders... Cool to watch 15+ birds try to feed with only 9 holes..
Humming bird wars..
Just before dark they call a truce and actually share the feeder holes.. It only takes one bird to break the truce and the war is on again... Cheap entertainment!! Don't have any baby pics but this is what they look like.
.View attachment 4955968View attachment 4955972
Click to expand...

I have a really long porch and they seem to LOVE playing Star Wars flying the trench, of the Death Star. The problem is sometimes we're obstacles on the porch and I swear to god one of them is going to put my eye out sometime... They literally go whipping by our heads.... FULL TILT!
 
Sqwee

Sqwee

Well-Known Member
I dont have tomato cages but they like to hang out in my palo verde trees and on the clothes line. This guy seems to be the boss around here, he'll sit in the tree near the feeder and attack any other hummingbird that tries to get a drink.

Humming Bird.JPG

Star Wars battles is a good way to describe it, they're so fast and fly through the tightest spaces, I've gotten used to them buzzing my head.

This little female was my buddy for awhile, she wasn't too skittish. I'd sit out on the front porch drinking my coffee and she'd get a drink from the feeder and then zip over to this tree near me to hide.
20191008_173706.jpg
 
GanjaJack

GanjaJack

Well-Known Member
Sqwee said:
I dont have tomato cages but they like to hang out in my palo verde trees and on the clothes line. This guy seems to be the boss around here, he'll sit in the tree near the feeder and attack any other hummingbird that tries to get a drink.

View attachment 4956124

Star Wars battles is a good way to describe it, they're so fast and fly through the tightest spaces, I've gotten used to them buzzing my head.

This little female was my buddy for awhile, she wasn't too skittish. I'd sit out on the front porch drinking my coffee and she'd get a drink from the feeder and then zip over to this tree near me to hide.
View attachment 4956129
Click to expand...

We only get Ruby throated.... I just remember a while back reading something on "THE INTERNET", that hummings birds never perch. Since then I've seen them perch on the feeder, perch on the fence, perch on branches, so when he did so on a tomato cage I finally took a picture and got curious as he kept coming back. I hope he comes back next year.... He's cool, I wake up in the morning have my coffee doing bong hits sitting at the "nook" looking out the picture window and he's hanging out. In fact he hangs out in the damn thunderstorm too, lol! As he did today.

In the spring time they will come to the picture window and tap on the window if we don't have the feeder out there when they get here. They're demanding little "suckers"... lol!
 
Sqwee

Sqwee

Well-Known Member
GanjaJack said:
We only get Ruby throated.... I just remember a while back reading something on "THE INTERNET", that hummings birds never perch. Since then I've seen them perch on the feeder, perch on the fence, perch on branches, so when he did so on a tomato cage I finally took a picture and got curious as he kept coming back. I hope he comes back next year.... He's cool, I wake up in the morning have my coffee doing bong hits sitting at the "nook" looking out the picture window and he's hanging out. In fact he hangs out in the damn thunderstorm too, lol! As he did today.

In the spring time they will come to the picture window and tap on the window if we don't have the feeder out there when they get here. They're demanding little "suckers"... lol!
Click to expand...
Ruby throats are the most common here but I've seen Anna's, black chins, Costa's and one time a Rufous, he was my favorite, looked like a little fire ball flying around. I've seen them sit through thunderstorms too, they puff themselves up and shake like they're taking a shower. We get roadrunners climbing the trim on the house to try and jump off and snatch them from the feeders but I haven't seen them catch one yet.

They definitely perch, here is a slow-mo video of that female perching in that tree near me, not the greatest quality but you can make out her tiny little feet grabbing the branch and shows how fast their wings move, I miss that little bird lol.

I'm not sure how to embed it so here is a link.
https://www.instagram.com/stories/sqweedunq/2631007505868126463/
 
GanjaJack

GanjaJack

Well-Known Member
Sqwee said:
We get roadrunners climbing the trim on the house to try and jump off and snatch them from the feeders but I haven't seen them catch one yet.
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What the....... Woah!!

Yeh the other birds here don't mess with the hummers here. We get blue jays but they like peanuts mostly.

A new thing here is eagles they are repopulating NY pretty darn good now. I saw two of them get into a struggle in my back field, they were grappling each other in mid air, trying to throw each other to the ground, frickin' one of the most amazing things I ever saw in my life.

Except the flock of about 1000 turkey that went through my yard one time, ( I didn't know it was a huge flock, I saw a couple turkey and wanted to get my dog all hyped up, so I let her out... and then just sat there in amazement as 100's and 100's of turkeys started taking off and flying over to the next hill.. Never seen nothing like that......
 
StonedGardener

StonedGardener

Well-Known Member
HydoDan said:
We had a bumper crop of hummers this year.. They show up in March and have as many babies as possible..
Usually 3-4 clutches per female.. We had to double up on feeders and went thru 20# of sugar..
Only a couple left now.. The rest are on their way to Mexico..
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"Clutches", love those names for specific groups of animals......a clouder of cats, a pod of whales, a murder of crows..........it's a trivia game we play.....thanks for new one.
 
StonedGardener

StonedGardener

Well-Known Member
GanjaJack said:
What the....... Woah!!

Yeh the other birds here don't mess with the hummers here. We get blue jays but they like peanuts mostly.

A new thing here is eagles they are repopulating NY pretty darn good now. I saw two of them get into a struggle in my back field, they were grappling each other in mid air, trying to throw each other to the ground, frickin' one of the most amazing things I ever saw in my life.

Except the flock of about 1000 turkey that went through my yard one time, ( I didn't know it was a huge flock, I saw a couple turkey and wanted to get my dog all hyped up, so I let her out... and then just sat there in amazement as 100's and 100's of turkeys started taking off and flying over to the next hill.. Never seen nothing like that......
Click to expand...
We have plenty of eagles in "wine country".........ya sure those eagles weren't mating?
 
GanjaJack

GanjaJack

Well-Known Member
HydoDan said:
Exactly what I was thinking.. I've seen the aerial display and the tree limb jump on her back method..
Lots of birds here..
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woah ok that may have been what I saw, it looked like a fight the way they were throwing each other to the ground… it was just so amazing. Eagles are new here in the past 15-20 years, there is getting to be more and more of them. So hopefully I get to see this more.
 
GanjaJack

GanjaJack

Well-Known Member
Deer and door always made me curious. You can say Deer but not Deers, But you can say door and doors... Same with Goose and Geese but not Moose and Meese.

curious2garden said:
When I go out to pull the feeders to refill I get a lot of angry customer feedback!
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HAHA!! Yeap, same here!!

I think it's just cool how a tiny wild bird interacts so intelligently with humans.

We've even had them come up to us just before they leave for the winter time, almost like "Thank you, see yah next year, wanted to let you know we're leaving.".....

Then the next Spring, they will fly right up to our faces like "Hi! We're back, put the feeder up please!"....
 
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