Hernando Home Buzzing with Hummingbirds (Miss)

[Donna]

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/091310-hernando-home-buzzing-with-hummingbirds Video and rest of story

HERNANDO, Miss. - The Mississippi River is a major flyway for birds migrating across the U.S., which makes the Mid-South a bird watcher's paradise. For one Hernando woman, this time of year is abuzz with some thirsty little friends.

Kelly Jacobs' big yellow and blue Hernando house looks like something that got poured out of a box of crayons, but when her little friends find it, they know where they are.

The hummingbirds show up here every year as they have for the last 17 years. Some thirty feeders dot her property and her porch, and Kelly goes through ten pounds of sugar, and gallons and gallons of water feeding them every week. But she doesn't overfill her feeders, because she fills them every day. (continued)...

[MAK]

    That's alot of feeders to keep up with! My hats off to this woman.   

[Bird Crazy]

that would be a full time job.

[annieinelkhart]

   Good job!  We have up 3 feeders all summer and they keep me busy filling them too.  They ARE fun to watch and mine don't like to share either.  Just don't understand how people get pictures where there are lots of them all at one feeder.    They come to my windows and "fuss" at me to fill them, it makes my hubby laugh when he see that happen.

[Patti from Kentucky]

Just don't understand how people get pictures where there are lots of them all at one feeder.

I read, somewhere, that hummingbirds will stop defending a feeder or patch of flowers when the energy cost of defending outweighs the benefit they would get from the nectar source.  Along those lines, I went to a hummingbird festival in Western Kentucky (Land Between the Lakes, since you may be close enough to know about it), where during peak migration (early August, for them), they can regularly see 200 hummingbirds in a day.  The hummingbird expert there said there are just too many hummingbirds for any one bird to attempt to defend a feeder, so while they do spar with each other and engage in some chases, they seem to generally get the futility of the effort and will share feeders.

On the rare occasions when I've seen two birds land on my single feeder...it's more like a game of chicken...they stare at each other, and then it's just a matter of time to see which one will launch to chase the other first.  The only way I would ever get a picture of two birds on my feeder is if I'd been standing there with the camera poised and ready...possible, but unlikely.

[annieinelkhart]

Thanks Patti for that information!  I too sometimes can catch 2 and once in a while there just might be a third but they don't usually see the one "hiding" between the house and them!  LOL!   It is split seconds and the combat is on!!  While sitting out by the pool they wiz past our heads and you can feel the wind as they zoom past.  I love to listen to their "chatter", makes me wish I knew what they are saying!