Tuesday, August 26, 2008

West Virginia Hummingbirds


Food ahead! - click on the photo for a large version

Hummingbirds are fascinating creatures. Their ability to hover in one spot, then suddenly pop over to another place and come to a stationary hover is a lot of fun to watch. My mother-in-law has several feeders for these amazing birds, and has attracted up to 20 at once, all looking for some sweet nectar. Since they use so much energy, hummingbirds must consume a lot of food. They can be quite aggressive with each other in their quest for sustenance, with some birds continually chasing others from the feeders.

As you can see in the second photo, wasps also love the sugar water in the feeders. We had actually hung a couple of these type of feeders out at home, but had to take them down, as all we were attracting were yellow jackets. Still, this photo shows one of the birds coming in for a landing on the feeder and a sip of sweet nectar.


Hummingbird closing in on a feeder