I have recently hung on my front porch a hummingbird feeder. I have about 4 "regulars" at the feeder, however I have noticed that most of the time 1 certain hummingbird will attack and chase away all the others. He also attacks bees and wasps that gather around there as well. I have never seen such dominant and vicious behavior in a bird. I live in Southwestern Pa and know that these hummingbirds are Ruby Throats. My questions are this: is this normal behavior for ruby throated hummingbirds and should I hang more feeders to allow feeding for all of them without the fighting?
3 replies to this topic
#2
Halvalla
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Halvalla
Posted 15 August 2006 - 01:00 PM
Hiya - don't know if more feeders would help, but it might give the other hummers a chance to get at a feeder while he was otherwise occupied. /forums/emoticons/emotion-1.gif I think this is fairly common behaviour. I have a friend who has three feeders in various locations around her yard - she reports that she watches one particular hummingbird spend most of his day chasing the other hummingbirds and insects away from all of them, in turn. He must be using up more calories than he's taking in and defeating the whole purpose of the exercise, but who says birds are any smarter than people !
#3
Jacques
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Jacques
Posted 24 May 2007 - 11:42 AM
I have heard lots of stories of people having dozens of hummingbirds in their yard at one time, but I have never observed this in real life. At my mum's place in Nova Scotia, she had tried putting up multiple feeders, and the same hummingbird will guard each one and chase away all intruders, including his mate and offspring at times. I don't know if it is a trait of this particular family (the same family of Ruby Throats has returned for many years), or if hummers are natural bastards, but this one male especially is very aggressive; he'll even go after the starlings and blue jays. If you hang up more feeders, your aggressive regular will probably just keep defending them, unless you have a very large property.
#4
nightowl
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nightowl
Posted 07 September 2007 - 02:39 PM
I put up a couple of hummingbird feeders (Ruby Throats) every year and they all battle for the food. Often one will sit in my Rose of Sharon bush near one of the feeders and wait to attack any others that come to feed. This is their normal behavior but they all keep coming back to fight again and again. They are amazing to watch.
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