This morning, I awoke on the sound of rain. On this fourth consecutive day of rain, I have grown worried about flooding, so I peered out various windows to find out if the water had did start to pond. In the backyard twilight, I saw a ruby-throated hummingbird swoop into land in this little wife’s bright red feeder. He got two slurps the real key rocketed almost directly to somewhere inside canopy of a big elm tree.
I wondered if he may be quick enough to discover and avoid falling rain drops. I live in Southeastern Virginia, and mostly our hummingbird visitors sport feathers ruby at the back and white on the breast. The males have ruby-red throat feathers. Two or three males fight within the use of our feeder along with perhaps six to ten females regularly fly directly into feed, unmolested with the males. On occasion, we view a larger black hummingbird fly in. None in the ruby throats wreck havoc on him.
A migratory species, hummingbirds nest in a variety of Central American countries during winter. They fly over the Gulf of Mexico to go back to North American locations familiar in their mind. I have not read any plausible explanation as to the reasons our bird visitors fly as much as Virginia after they might have stayed in Alabama or Florida. I have read which the males come see us first, probably to stake claims on food foraging areas, like my partner’s bird feeder. The females, as well as their young, arrive later inside the Spring (usually inside the month of May). I read some studies of captured, released, and tracked hummingbirds that conclude fat content as crucial to their health in addition to their chances of surviving such long journeys of flight annually. The birds live only 3-5 years.
We have noticed a peculiar behavior in your hummingbirds when my significant other moves the feeder to an alternative post hook (about two feet away). She has a bird seed station hanging on the other post, to secure our seed crunching birds. Those birds spill seed to your ground, which attracts squirrels who can eventually damage the lawn below the feeder. So, my significant other will occasionally switch the 2 main feeders. For some reason, our hummingbirds, that can find the red feeder after the 1200 mile journey, will hover as you’re watching seeder station that got put where they expected it. It takes them awhile to get the new location from the sugar water which they crave. #TAG1writer