MetaChat - Snowflakes and hummingbirds.

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27 November 2006

Snowflakes and hummingbirds. It's about 36° and there are snowflakes in the air. I was out raking leaves in a courtyard and I heard hummingbirds fighting in the parking lot.

→[More:]An Anna's hummingbird, male, has staked out the feeders I've hung off the lintel for our back door. And he's flown close enough to me that I have gotten to hear the hum. His main occupation is driving other hummingbirds from the property. They, dart, they hover, they squabble and all at warp speed. If you drew the flights and fights as lines in real time, they'd look like some stoner Winamp visualization on crack at fast forward. They just squirt and squabble from one end of the yard to the other in about 2 seconds, and they make a surprising amount of noise.

They fly so fast and I have floaters--I never know whether it's feather or floater unless they stop and perch. This one did, on a bamboo pole. I took a picure--but that killed my batteries, so later on those. And it's nothing to being there.

Those things are so tiny and they burn so hot and fast. How on earth do they stay alive when it's freezing ? It is so amazing.

Well, wow I am going to have to start taking the feeders in at night and warming them up before I put them out in the morning. I like to provide full hummingbird service.

post by: y2karl at: 16:25 | 10 comments

How very cool! And very nice of you to feed them. The honey bees are still out here, hanging out by the rosemary. Trying to hurry up before real winter gets here, I guess.

posted by chewatadistance 27 November | 16:42

I can watch hummingbirds all day. Once, at one of those indoor desert-to-rainforest exhibits at the Indianapolis Zoo, a hummingbird hovered like Tinkerbell inches from my nose for a blink or two then flew off. It was quite a thrill. I wonder if I could plant a hummingbird garden on our back porch (I'm not even sure if there are hummingbirds in the NYC area.) I might have to settle for monarchs.

posted by Pips 27 November | 17:40

Lovely post. Nice to see you, Karl.

posted by matildaben 27 November | 18:08

When building my sister's house, a hummingbird got trapped in the greenhouse. It's all glass and two stories tall, so the poor birdie couldn't see the open doors down below. It stayed in a skylight at the ceiling and wouldn't come out.

Finally, I got the fish net and a very tall ladder and netted the little guy. He got tangled in the net, so I had to disentangle him. It ended with me holding him gently in my cupped hands and letting him go outside.

They are amazingly beautiful close up. And their hearts beat so strongly it was like holding a little vibrator. The heart must be about 15% of the body mass.

posted by warbaby 27 November | 18:31

I spent a little time this summer in a rented cabin in upstate New York and the lady who rented it to me had a humming bird feeder and tons of flowers in her garden and there were hummers galore. I was totally obsessed with them, the noise they make is just amazing, I wish I had something to compare it to other than a lightsaber in Star Wars, but that's what they sounded like. They are completely unearthly, almost robotic in the speed and precision with which they move.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 November | 18:59

FYI: you can put Mahonia media (or any of a number of other winter-blooming plants) in a pot and feed the hummingbirds without all the effort of washing, filling, and warming the feeder.

posted by agropyron 27 November | 19:07

I wish I had something to compare it to other than a lightsaber in Star Wars, but that's what they sounded like.

That is not a bad comparison--they hum and the hum shifts in pitch as they move towards or away from you.

Man, hummingbirds do not like hummingbirds. It makes for entertainment to watch but they themselves mean business. They make these sibilant squeals that sound like recording tapes at fast forward when they go at each other. And you can hear the menace and threat in their voices.

'S funny. I remember reading an article once about threat calls in warm blooded animals. If you graph them out on a screen, threat calls show the same elements in structure from species to species. It's like there's an underlying tonal grammar. A growl is a growl from tiger to mouse and hummingbirds, too.

posted by y2karl 27 November | 19:56

FYI: you can put Mahonia media (or any of a number of other winter-blooming plants) in a pot and feed the hummingbirds without all the effort of washing, filling, and warming the feeder.

Mahonia Media aka Oregon Grape we have in plenty. But it is not blooming at this moment nor is anything else, save for some black hollyhocks and sweet peas, or at least they were until today--now they are popsicles--and, anyway, I do wonder how a hummingbird can drink nectar from any frozen flower.

Well, as it is, it's in the 20s here and I am taking in the the two feeders--one alternately every 20 minutes--to thaw them out. And that hummingbird is right there when I take one back out. I think he has made the connection between me and the feeder--he makes noise when he sees me in the yard now.

posted by y2karl 28 November | 11:34

≡ Click to see image ≡

I read once that if the weather gets very cold, you can help hummingbirds along with a pinch of beef bouillon (low-sodium) granules for each cup of water/ 1/4 cup of sugar. This gives a protein boost to the bird. Just make sure to stir it to dissolve before filling the feeder. And enjoy them. I can't get enough of hummingbirds in the summer here.

posted by redvixen 28 November | 16:37

You know, I was wondering about doing something along those lines--evidently insects are about 1/4 of their summer diet, so they can use the protein.

It never got above 28° yesterday and I had to keep taking the feeders in and warming them up when they started to freeze up. Then it went down to 18° last night, which is incredibly cold for around here. So, I worried all night about the hummingbirds--how could they make it through that ?

Well, they did. The alpha was chasing off interlopers by 7:45.

It's about half the size of the one in the picture. I doubt it's more than an inch and a half long without the beak, tail included.

posted by y2karl 29 November | 14:26

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