The Continuing Action at My Hummingbird Feeders

Sept. 26, 2024: Hummingbirds arriving, hovering and fighting

Back to my hummingbird feeders!  This set of photos is meant to share the action I have been watching right at the feeders.  The set of feeders in these photos are the ones I put up right outside my bedroom window.  Since I was going to be spending hours laying on my bed either exercising, icing my knee, or elevating my leg, I wanted to have some sort of pleasant distraction.  The photos, taken from the back porch, show how intense the hummingbirds were during their dining times.

This Black-chinned Hummingbird flared his tail out as he approached the feeder.  The hummingbirds would land on the copper coil, and then feed through the small hole in the lid to the feeder.   For perspective on size, the red cap is 1.5 inches wide.

The hummingbirds come in so quickly.  This one has an approach that looked very different from the others. It is as if it were gliding downward rather than flying in.  It looks like a little plump penguin here rather than a skinny agile hummingbird.

Look closely at the bill of this immature Broad-billed Hummingbird. This is a male with his colored feathers yet to arrive.  His upper bill is broken in the middle.  This could have happened in a fight, in an accident, or perhaps it was injured when the bird pulled its bill out of a feeder quickly to avoid an incoming hummingbird.  At this point, the hummingbird still looks healthy and well fed.

Often a hummingbird on the feeder would be harrassed by another hummingbird. The second bird might not even attempt to feed, it might just want to chase the first bird away from "its" feeders.  Here you see an immature Costa's Hummingbird (with the purple gorget) looking over his shoulder at an incoming intruder.

And then the Costa's parries the attack, going on the offensive.

At another moment, a Broad-billed Hummingbird gets ready to land on the feeder perch.  Hummingbirds cannot walk on their feet. They can grab and hold onto a perch, but they can't step sideways. Hummingbirds' flight skills are so good that if they need to move one step to the side, it is easier to fly up and then over to land once more.

A silent discussion is happening at this moment as one hummingbird watches a larger one approach.  Wait for it.....wait for it.....wait........

Size doesn't matter.  It's the fight in the bird that matters.  And even though there is another, empty feeder inches away, and other vacant feeders on the back porch, what matters to these two birds is a question of who that particular feeder belongs to.

I think I know how this discussion ended!

All of these photos were taken during one short morning two weeks ago.  Even now, the hummingbirds continue to fight over each and every feeder at all moments during the day.  More feeding happens in the first hours of the morning and the last two hours of the day, but the fighting never ends.