Sunday, July 3, 2016

We're Going to Need More Sugar!!

We put up a hummingbird feeder in the first few days of our stay here at Leadville National Fish Hatchery, and immediately started attracting Broad-tailed Hummingbirds.
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
As time went by we put up a second feeder, but that one got "taken over" by a single aggressive male, so we put up a third.
Mr. Rufous Hummingbird 
About the time we put up the third feeder a few Rufous Hummingbirds arrived, and one of them sort of took over that feeder. He isn't as aggressive as some, and does share his feeder occasionally.

But the original feeder seems to be the community feeder, and gets most of the attention.
So, how's it going??
Sometimes it gets a little too much attention! There are only six holes on this feeder, and we've seen as many as nine hummingbirds trying to use it at the same time.
Nine Hummingbirds
We're putting out about a quart of sugar water each day, and sometimes more. The hummers don't even wait until the feeder is hung up before they start feeding.
Why wait?
We're enjoying our hummingbirds, and hope that a Calliope Hummingbird or two shows up eventually to round out the group.

Mark

5 comments:

  1. Impressive! We haven't seen any in Minnesota so I have forgotten about putting it out. Will go do that right now. Thanks for the reminder!

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  2. Nice post. They know you are a nice guy so why be afraid of you giving them more food.

    Interesting, no email arrived when you posted. Serene and I still check your blog for new entries and saw this one.

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    1. It seems like the e-mail notification goes out later on the day of the post. I don't know why it isn't immediate.

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