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| Male Broad-billed Hummingbird |
If you’ve observed hummingbird behavior yourself, you won’t be surprised
to know that when the male Broad-billed Hummingbird flew into our picture
window (and that I rescued in the story from my previous post), he was in the midst of a high-speed chase with two other males.
At any time of year, but especially
during spring, males put on a dazzling “air show” competing for flower nectar,
sugar-water feeders, and other females.
These battles can be extremely fast and fierce, with each male
maneuvering to cut off their rivals from every direction.
It can even be hard for our eyes to
follow their flight paths while each of them uses all the weapons in their
arsenal: dive bombing straight up or down, sharp u-turns, hovering an inch away
with tail feathers spread in order to appear as large as possible, rat-a-tat
alarm calls, and more.
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| Male Black-chinned Hummingbird |
And the battles aren’t just between males of the same
species, as all of them want to have “dibs” on everything.
Many times, they stay so agitated
all day long that they will even chase away females of their own species, the
very same ones they are trying to impress and win as a mate!
Sometimes they’ll also just sit on the
feeder or on a nearby high branch, just itchin’ for another male to come near
so they can try to scare them off.
I can’t help it, when I witness these tiny warriors and their big
battles, I start hearing tough-guy movie lines replaying in my head: “You
talkin’ to me?” from Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!” from Dustin
Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, “What we have here is failure to communicate” from
Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke, “Go ahead, make my day” from Clint Eastwood in Sudden
Impact, “King Kong ain’t got s#*t on me!” from Denzel Washington in Training Day, and on and on… ha ha!
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| Male Anna's Hummingbird |
One day several years ago in my Seattle garden, I saw two
male Anna’s Hummingbirds actually engage in a kind of “hand-to-hand”
combat!
It started in the air with
grabbing each other’s tiny talons and hitting with their wings, and continued
all the way to the ground with bill-poking and jumping on each other.
I could hardly believe my eyes, and
just stood there with my mouth open.
I thought it would continue to the death!
Finally one of them –probably the victor- flew away and the
other one composed itself for a few seconds and then took off after it.
Besides all this, the “special courtship
show” that Anna’s Hummingbird males do for females involves climbing to around
150ft, diving straight down towards where she is perched while experiencing a
G-force of 9 (holy cow- that’s fighter pilot stuff) and then switching
direction against that force of gravity to do a narrow loop straight up
again.
They flair their tail
feathers as they make the U-turn upwards, which causes a loud squeak that
scientists previously thought was a vocalization until recent advances in
videography!
You can learn more about their fascinating life history at AllAboutBirds.org.
Not
to be outdone, the make Broad-billed Hummingbird does its own
fun-to-watch courtship display, flying back and forth repeatedly in
front of the female, in a swinging pattern. It's a wonder to me that
the female doesn't get dizzy watching him, and in fact, the AllAboutBirds.org page on Broad-bills likens the male's display to a hypnotist’s swinging pocket watch....!
Speaking
of vocalizations though, the male Anna's is one of the only
hummingbirds in the world that actually does "sing", but for those of us
old enough to remember cassette tapes, it sounds an awful lot like the
squeaking of a cassette stuck in an old tape player! I've frequently
observed them perched near or on the branch of a favorite flowering
shrub, turning their head from side to side as if in order to
"broadcast" as far as possible, and singing over and over. Check out this recording from the MacCauley Library, of an Anna's Hummingbird at Pena Blanca Lake in 2010.
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| Female Anna's Hummingbird guarding flowers |
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The females are the ones who actually choose their
mate though, by pointing their bill directly at a male who is courting
her and/or leading him to the nest she's built.
And when it comes
to battles, the females can give as good as they get too, fiercely chasing away
males or other females when provoked, and with a vengeance.
But many times, I see them respond
to aggression by just flying off to feed on flowers and wait for the males to
get too tired to defend the feeders, or go gather strands of spider web and
lichen to build their tiny cup nests.
By the way, did you know that a large part of every
hummingbird’s diet is small insects?
The tips of their bills are too small to pick insects off of
plants or out of the air one at a time, so
they simply fly through swarms of insects with their bill wide open!
They've also been known to steal insects out of spider webs, and woe is
the little spider who comes out to defend their web!
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| Dinner for 7 |
By mid-April, a lot of the mating has happened, and the
battles become somewhat less intense.
It can be common to see mutiple hummingbirds on the feeder at once, at least for
a few moments at a time.
You’d be
surprised how quickly they can lap nectar, because of the way they can swirl it
up with their forked tongues.
We
have two small 3-port feeders that we keep filled during all months we’re in
Arivaca, and one large one with 8 ports that only comes out in the spring.
And our garden is planted with plenty
of “trumpet-shaped” native flowers, such as Hesperaloe, Verbena, Lantana,
Penstemon, red and blue Sages, and Aloe.
However, I’ve seen plenty of them feeding on our native Fleabane,
Mexican Primrose and Poppy flowers too, so they do like the daisy-shaped
flowers in our gardens too.
And
they love the nectar of Brassica flowers such as Mustard, Kale, Broccoli, and
Collards almost as much as the bees do! Feeders can also attract other
nectar-loving birds, but if the Gila Woodpeckers are driving you crazy, a
tilted hood over the feeder will discourage them yet still allow smaller and
more–skilled fliers to feed, such as Orioles.
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| Male Hooded Oriole on feeder |
Luckily, white sugar and water is an inexpensive recipe for
feeder success!
Always use ¼ cup
white sugar to 1 cup boiling water, and never use brown sugar, honey, or any
food coloring.
Feeders must be
cleaned before every refill, and at least every other day, to prevent the buildup
of bacteria.
I recommend the
HummZinger brand feeders because they are the easiest to clean by far, have a
good ant moat, and are not expensive or breakable.
With their extremely high metabolism and daylong kamikaze
battles, it’s no wonder that hummingbirds drain the flowers, the feeders, and
the “gnat clouds” so fast!
If you're looking for
another way to attract hummingbirds that's not as high-maintenance as
providing feeders, consider adding a small "cup fountain", like the one
in this movie.
After
finding this fountain in the alley behind our Seattle house with a
"free" sign on it, I set it up on our deck, and the small stream of
water dripping from cup to cup
instantly attracted hummingbirds
to drink and bathe there. Other small birds such as Chickadees,
Bushtits, and Warblers loved it too, so when we moved into our Arivaca
home, getting a cup fountain for the patio was one of our first
priorities. Despite its close proximity to our patio door, there is no
hesitation by hummingbirds, goldfinches, and even larger birds such as
the Great-tailed Grackles below to visit for a "sip-and-dip"!
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Arivaca fountain with a female Great-tailed Grackle
(Look closely to see that it is under the watchful eye of a male Broad-billed Hummingbird!) |
Photo credits:
Male Broad-billed Hummingbird by www.naturespicsonline.com, public domain
Male Black-chinned Hummingbird photo by Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
Male Anna's Hummingbird by Robert McMorran, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, public domain
Female Anna's Hummingbird in garden by Emily Bishton
Dinner for 7 by Emily Bishton
Male Hooded Oriole by Conrad Uno
Hummingbird fountain movie by Emily Bishton
Great-tailed Grackle in fountain by Emily Bishton
