The Flying Circus is alive!

Jeff Horton

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The Heart of Dixie
I dunno what happened but the word has gotten out in the Hummer circles and it's like a Flying Circus on my front porch. Lots of dive bombing and dog fights. Not safe to go out there. :)

Caught these guy refueling last night. Had 4-5 last year. At least a dozen now. I have counted 8 and there were more buzzing around that I couldn't count. So that is why I say there are at least a dozen. Would not be surprised if it's closer to 18 of the little buggers.

Obviously trying to fatten up for the fall migration.

hummers.jpg
 
We've got the same thing here, Jean dug her feeder out of storage and made up some syrup. First afternoon there were two or three fighting over it, next day about a dozen or more - too many to count, and also too many for one to dominate the feeder. Three days and the feeder is empty.
 
A dozen hummingbirds? Amateurs! :rolleyes: :rofl: (Just kidding, even one is a cool sight to see.)

First, you gotta understand that hummingbirds and feeders are LOML's main hobby, and we live where the the little guys can be seen year-round. Second, LOML mixes some STRONG sugar water for the little buggers, so she's got the poor animals hooked like crackheads from the first sip. I've checked, and our address is scrawled on the walls of hummingbird bathrooms throughout Southern California. (It's really, really tiny print. They write small... but fast.) :p

She's got eight large feeders that she fills daily in the summer. (In the winter a single filling might last two days.) We go through up to 5 pounds of sugar daily. I won't try to guess how many hummingbirds are flying around our feeders at any given moment, but I've counted 50 or more at a time, and at peak times I don't think 100 would be too big of stretch.
 
We have them also. They are a lot of fun to watch. One will guard a feeder, and chase any other hummers away. If the light hits their chest/neck just right you can see some really vivid colors. We have only the ruby throated hummers, but from what I have read, California has a good variety hummers.

A couple weeks ago we had a small hummer fly into a spider web near our kitchen dining area. When the spider got done, there was nothing but a skeleton and feathers left. The entire internals had be sucked out. It was not a very large spider, it had a body about 3/8 inch diameter. Poor bird.

Say Vaughn, from everything we have read, the correct nectar mix is four parts water and one part sugar. Boil the water, and then stir the sugar in until it disappears in the the water. You do not boil the two together.
 
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KEWL! My folks get dozens at their three feeders, Jeff. I love sitting on the back porch first thing in the morning having my first pot of coffee and just watching them. Of course, I only get to do this when I go back to Texas for vacation. :(

Hey, Wes, my dad uses a pump type BB gun to shoot any wasps foolishe enough to hang around his. No he never hits the feeder. Did I mention that he's 72 and still a pretty good shot? GRIN
 
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...Say Vaughn, from everything we have read, the correct nectar mix is four parts water and one part sugar. Boil the water, and then stir the sugar in until it disappears in the the water. You do not boil the two together.
I think she's using about a 4:1 ratio on the mix, but she doesn't boil the water. (That's too close to cooking for LOML.) :rofl: She does scrub each feeder and rinses with cold water when she refills them. The boiling is probably a good sanitizing measure.

...Hey, Wes, my dad uses a pump type BB gun to shoot any wasps foolishe enough to hang around his. No he never hits the feeder. Did I mention that he's 72 and still a pretty good shot? GRIN
Some of the best fun I had growing up was spotlighting cockroaches at night on the cinder block wall in the back yard and gunning them down with the ol' Daisy lever action BB gun. Good times. :)
 
Yesterday we started seeing what looked like baby hummingbirds at the flowers in the front of the house. Really looked like a hummer, except for the antennae.

Apparently there are things called humming bird moths! Couldn't get a picture of them.

I'd never even heard of the the things before. They fly just like a hummer, with rapidly moving wings and full axis control of flight....
 
Yesterday we started seeing what looked like baby hummingbirds at the flowers in the front of the house. Really looked like a hummer, except for the antennae.

Apparently there are things called humming bird moths! Couldn't get a picture of them.

I'd never even heard of the the things before. They fly just like a hummer, with rapidly moving wings and full axis control of flight....

We saw those once at a friends place! We thought it was a hummingbird as well, but the neighbor corrected us.:D

Wes

Oh, and Billy, I would hit the feeder.
 
Yesterday we started seeing what looked like baby hummingbirds at the flowers in the front of the house. Really looked like a hummer, except for the antennae.

Apparently there are things called humming bird moths! Couldn't get a picture of them.

I'd never even heard of the the things before. They fly just like a hummer, with rapidly moving wings and full axis control of flight....

Hi Brent. We just started having the humming bird moths last week. In particular, they like the moon flowers. Moon flowers grow on a vine, and about this time of year they start blossoming with big white blossoms. The HB moths think that the blossoms are the best thing going. Without one to measure, the proboscis must be approaching 2 inches.
 
I think we have something called "russian sage" out front, just a couple of plants, but the get really tall with some little bluish/purplish flowers.

The hummers and the HB moths seem to like it.

We've been keeping our eyes out for them again. There were 3 the time we saw them, but have not seen them again... Darn...

It was confusing. We just couldn't figure out what the antennas were. Then we looked up 'Baby Hummingbird Antenna' on the web and all became clear...
 
"Apparently there are things called humming bird moths!"

Yep... and anybody who grows tomatoes in that part of the world hates 'em. Their larvae are those big green tomato hornworms that can strip a whole plant of leaves in a day. Big as your finger and twice as ugly, with 'eyes' all down their body and a big horn at the tailend.

tomato_hornworm_larva.jpg


Also called sphinx moths...

thanks,

Bill
 
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