My Hummingbirds are really.... Rescue update

**Medusa** · 08-18-2009, 08:32 AM

Will Vaseline keep bees away, too? I watched them actually dive bomb my poor hummingbirds even when they flew away. Poor little things can't feed. When I cleaned the feeder last night, the bees came after me, too.

**kokopup** · 08-18-2009, 09:48 AM

I haven't had any experience with the bee issue. I do have a few bees but my
humming birds population has gotten so big they would keep the bees away
with all of their activity. My population of hummers is almost twice what I was
seeing last year. I have 4 big feeder that have to be filled about every 4th
day. I'm even seeing them share this year. I am seeing up to 3 feeding on the same feeder at once. I never saw this last year.

I doubt that the vaseline will help with the bees since they fly in rather than
crawl in. The ants would have to walk over the vaseline.

**kokopup** · 08-27-2009, 10:03 AM

It seems like my Humming Bird population grows a little every day. Last year I had 3 small feeders that I had to fill several times a day. This year with 4 large feeders I am not running like I had to last year but I am still amazed at how much these little guys are consuming. I have already put out almost 3 gallons of sugar water. For some reason they will favor one feeder over another and the feeder they favor will be emptied in a day. The favored feeder will change from day to day.

I am really amazed watching these guys fight/play where they fly in circles and chase each other around. My porch has post about every 10 feet and they will come zooming under the porch, by me sitting in a rocker, then do circles around these post, while flying in tandem. There are big trees in their flight path and they zoom in circles around these then back under the porch.
I keep expecting to find one or both on the ground due to a mid air crash into a tree or porch post.

I have really enjoyed watching these guys play and I think they enjoy putting on a show for me.

**kokopup** · 10-16-2009, 03:23 PM

My hummingbird population this year was really something. I ended up with 7 feeders and they were all busy up until just about a week ago. All of a sudden they were gone except for one or two stragglers. I decided this morning to take down all my feeders but one since i hadn't seen any birds the day before. When I went out to one of the feeders there was a hummer
just sitting on the feeder, all balled up like it was cold. It go to the high 40's here last night. When I walked closer it tried to fly off but ended up only going around 50 feet before landing on the ground under some azaleas. When I walked out to see about it it was on the ground and did not struggle when I picked it up. I ended up bring it in and putting it in a box for warmth. For a while it appeared to be dead but after around 30 minutes in the warmth it started trying to fly.

I contacted the Wild life Rescue at Oak Mountain asking for advice. I wasn't sure if it would be ok, if I just took it out now that it had warmed up, and let it go. It is getting colder tonight so I was afraid it might not make it. They ask me to bring it to the rescue, so Koko and I took a ride out to the Park to take the little fellow to Rescue. We needed to check on some trail we had worked on last week anyway so this worked out for the hummer and Koko got a needed hike at Oak Mountain. I'll do a follow up on it's status in a week to find out what the rescue ended up doing for hummer. By the way from what I can tell from the markings it was probably a Rufous hummingbird.