Randy Jarvis
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Sitting on the deck one morning in early June, Darcy and I noticed a hummingbird buzzing from window to window on the south side of our house almost touching the glass and seemingly looking in.
We conferred and concluded: “Dumb bird sees his own reflection and wants to fight!”
Two days before, the hummers were so weak from their migration and the lack of flowering food sources that they all looked like a “bad hair day.” Feathers disheveled, dirty and colorless, they barely had the strength to hang onto a branch while a north wind tried to blow them back south of our home near Pancake Bay in Ontario.
That morning, however, they all dive-bombed each other to protect their sugar water … so almighty busy chasing and fighting and bickering that none had a chance to feed.
We tired of watching the window buzzer’s antics and, deciding to go for a morning paddle on the calm Lake Superior, we headed inside to get our jackets. There, to our surprise, hovering frantically, trapped inside, was another male hummingbird trying to fly out the dining room window. Shooing him toward the open front door only heightened his distress. While the outside male continued to pick a fight through the glass, I cupped my hands, trapping the insider against the pane, then gently carried his now inert micro-featherweight body outside. Slowly opening my hands, he lay tail up, flat on his face.
“You killed him!” Darcy worried aloud. But a short second later the minute bird sounded out with a mouse-like peep and hummed himself up into the nearest white birch.
That afternoon as I was hauling two buckets of water up from the lake, a hummer buzzed up to within a foot of my face and just stared. Startled by his boldness, I stopped in my tracks. Ten seconds later he was gone as quickly as he had come. Was it the one that I had saved, offering thanks … or just another bully bird picking on someone way over his size.
Though humans are endeared to them, hummingbirds in the aviary society must be regarded as spoiled little brats. Pugnacious, truculent and downright greedy, they reign terror not only on other birds and nectar-collecting bees who happen to reside in their territory but also on their own kin.
We love them for their vibrant color, miraculous tiny size and aerial maneuverability. The exact same traits that make other birds despise them, I suspect. Hummingbirds are too tiny to make even a small lunch for any bird of prey and too fast to catch for even a screech owl hors d’oeuvre.
Randy Jarvis
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Our resident hummingbirds are freeloaders extraordinaire. Not only do they fight over our four-spot sugar-water tap, they have the audacity to complain whenever it runs dry. Many a bird has lingered midair at our kitchen or dining room window demanding a refill. If you happen to be out on the front deck, they hover eye-to-eye and angrily squeak, “Get off your lazy bum and fill the feeder!”
Truth forces me to add that it is usually the males that find the time to fight, complain and chase bumblebees away from the feeder. After wooing the female with a pendulum-like aerial display, careful to show off his iridescent colors, he loves her and then leaves her. Never helping with the construction of the nest, or even visiting it for that matter, the irresponsible male fattens up on a diet of nectar, aphids and the occasional spider and then heads back early to the warmer haunts of tropical Central America.
A summer goal of mine is to locate a hummingbird nest. My birding manuals say that I’m looking for a two-inch in diameter woven nest of plant down and spider silk. Camouflaged with lichens, it should be saddled to a horizontal branch of a tree in a forest clearing.
The odds of my success are not great. As the ever-seeking naturalist John Burroughs admitted in his book Wake Robin, “I have met with but two, both by chance.” If “by chance” or by skillful patience I succeed, I’ll witness inside the delicate basket two to three living jewels the size and color of large pearls. Hummingbird babies are born blind and without feathers.
Even knowing the hummingbird’s many poor traits, we will continue to watch for their arrival each spring and to hang our red plastic all-you-can-eat food bar in the black birch branches just outside our dining room window.
I’ll continue to tell the little freeloaders to “go suck on bee balm” when they awaken me from a morning deck meditation, but just as assuredly I’ll then go to heat some water, get out the sugar and mix them up another ruby-throated cocktail.
Good to Know
Weight: 3 grams (less than 1/4 of an ounce)
Length: 2 1/2 to 3 3/4 inches (7 to 9 cm)
Wing Span: Females, 4 to 5 1/4 inches (10 to 13 cm)
Colors: The male has a bright red throat and a forked tail. The female has a greyish-white throat and a rounded tail. They also have metallic green backs, white bellies and look like large dragonflies.
Life Expectancy: They can live in the wild for up to 14 years, but the average is 4 years.
Region: Along the length of Lake Superior. First sightings by mid-May. To winter, ruby-throated hummingbirds leave the region in September and head for Mexico, traveling up to 2,000 miles.
Speed: Wings beat 55 times per second, they average 25 mph.
Bright red or orange feeders, sold in many stores, attract hummingbirds. These feeders must be cleaned every other day, whether emptied or not, to avoid causing bird illness. Each week, the feeder should be washed with vinegar and water; do not use soap. As for the “cocktail” in the feeder, simply mix boiling water and white sugar at a ratio of 4:1 (4 cups water to 1 cup sugar). This can be refrigerated for up to one week. Do not use honey; it can cause infections. Food coloring is not necessary since the colored feeder attracts the birds.
Hint: To attract many hummers, put out more than one feeder. This reduces the natural competition and spreads the wealth, so to speak.
Keith Payne is a freelance writer living north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, who often finds himself accidentally learning about nature while lounging on his porch.