Ruby Throated Hummingbirds

This is not my finger in this picture.


I'm not going to lie to you--I wish it was, but it's not.






















Two years ago I couldn't tell you anything about Hummingbirds except :

A--they are very tiny birds that can hover in flight...and...

B--See A above

I had, in fact, previously enjoyed seeing Hummingbirds in the Bahamas and in Jamaica when I visited various resorts on vacation, but the idea of actually interacting with hummers on a daily basis was quite foreign to me until Pat and I moved here to St. Simons Island.

Then everything changed.

During our first summer here on the island we bought a cheep hummingbird feeder, mixed up a batch of sugar water, and we were quite amazed that we soon developed our own little Hummingbird “Air Force” that conducted aerobatic exercises outside our second floor living room window every day.

If you’ve never had a relationship with “Hummers,” you’re missing one of life’s simplest pleasures. Don’t get me wrong here—pound for pound, if Hummers were the size of humans, I’d be hiding under a rock somewhere because these little bastards can be viscious to each other.

Fortunately they are not that size, so you can let your Pugs and Poodles and grandchildren run around in safety outside while the Hummers buzz around overhead. Most inattentive people think that they are seeing insects when they are actually seeing Hummers.

We have what we call “Hummingbird wars” outside the window each afternoon between March and October. During these altercations, a couple of dominate birds will sit on nearby tree branches and defend our feeders (we now have two) from foreign birds that evidently don’t reside in the area or don’t belong to our flock or otherwise meet whatever criteria Hummers apply to their territorial protection strategies.

Our Hummers are mainly of the Ruby-throated Species. We might get an occasional visitor in other variations, but we’ve learned to recognize the Rubies and they represent 99% of the members of our own Air Force.

The above picture of the little male Ruby-Throat sitting on some unidentified person’s thumb makes me extremely jealous, because I’ve heard that you can develop a relationship with these wild birds where they will actually perch on you.

I’ve already had two up-close and personal experiences myself, but I have as yet not had a Hummer sit on me personally.

While visiting my Mother last spring down in south Alabama, I assisted her in purchasing and putting out a new hummingbird feeder on her breezeway adjacent to the pool. I think it was on the very first day (the date is incidental to this story) that the feeder was out, I managed to leave the adjacent garage passage door open, and late that afternoon I walked into the garage and found a male Ruby Hummer panicking and bouncing off of the ceiling of the garage.

Hummers instinctively fly upward when threatened, and opening the garage doors and chasing the little bird around only increased his distress. They are smart, but instinctively they are their own worst enemies in these situations.

Fortunately (and I’m not making this up) I had read on a website just weeks earlier about how to catch and release a hummer from a garage. Pat and my Mother and I, through a group effort, managed to corner the little guy—I grabbed him in my bare hands—and walk him outside to safely release him.

God, I wish I had my camera. He was poking his tiny head out and looking at me like he just knew that I was going to bite him in half and swallow him, toes and all…

But I didn’t, and upon his release he promptly hauled ass out of sight into the trees to the north of the house.

My other “close encounter” was late last summer when I was out on the patio doing some birdfeeder maintenance and I froze while a hummer came up to the feeder adjacent to the one I was working on, about a foot away from my head, and happily drank his fill.

Unfortunately, in order to keep from scaring him off, I was only able to see him out of the corner of my eye, but the striking thing for me was hearing the mechanical buzz of his wings as he maneuvered around the feeder.

Pat witnessed the whole episode, and being the bird lover that she is, she was quite envious of my experience.

With this week's 75 degree F daytime temps and balmy nights, we're already anticipating cooking up another batch of sugar water and waiting for our guys and gals to return from the long journey across the Gulf of Mexico.

As for me, personally, before this summer is over, I'm gonna show you all a picture of me with a Hummer sitting on my ever balding head (probably taking a poop on me in the process.)

And by the way, I owe a Hat Tip to Rodger over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical for the photo...