You Should be Migrating

Last weekend I was going to pull the hummingbird feeder. I hadn't had any hits for several days so figured my summer residents had left

I use a test tube feeder so it is quite easy to see when it has been "hit". Sunday night I pulled the tubes in and cleaned them, and set them to dry in the dish drainer. Monday morning I decided to fill one test tube and put it back out. That evening, about 6pm, I saw that the tube had been hit, so I put out the other two. I then decided to take a picture of the partial tube so I would have record, and this happened. The phone was 12-18" away. (click on the pictures to see them right side up - I had enough problems getting Typepad to accept the uploads for this post and I'm not willing to mess up everything by rotating them). Pictures are in order taken.

I think it is a youngster from the pair that summers here and he just enjoyed being out of the rain to feed - there are still lots of flowers on the autumn clematis, turtleheads and New England asters. We had a lot of rainy days this week (only got 2", but that took almost 4 days). Then Friday was huge wind so I situated the feeder so it was closer to the house and less affected by the wind. I have seen a bird every day since and filled the tubes on a regular basis as only about 1/4 of the tube is actually accessible. I'm really unsure if it is the same bird or not since sometimes it looks like a young male and sometimes it looks like a young female.

And don't even go there on the red color. It is really barely pink (picks taken in near darkness) and is made by hibiscus, not red dye.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Hummers are difficult to photograph. You got some good ones!

Happy that you got the rain, but jealous because we've had so little. Kind of you to move the feeders in deference to the wind conditions.

Here, I'll probably keep a hummingbird feeder out until the end of October, and I note that our hummers have never been bothered by light rains. A few years ago, I had a hummer come begging in a light sleet storm on the 9th of October. It stuck around long enough for me to cook up a batch of sugar water (which I no longer bother tinting since I had difficulty finding suitable agents).

[bogie]

There haven't been any hits on the feeder since first thing Monday morning (and then only a light hit). I replaced the tubes of nectar yesterday and will keep them refreshed for another week unless something shows up.