Got any bird pics?

[ThomasM]

This was a couple years ago at our place on the coast. Must have been a migratory group going through as the residents never have more than one at a time. Really gets going around 45sec mark.

 

[SilverFly]

I should probably start a crappy cell bird pic thread. Oh well, I finally got a pic of the egret we've seen flying upriver a few times. Never enough warning to get a shot. Tonight it flew right over the house. If it's not gonna pose the least it could do drop a few of those neck hackles!

 

[tkww]

Crummy cell phone pic -
View attachment 188694

Last winter, while staying at an Airbnb in Redondo Beach, I found a hummingbird feeder in the casita. Cleaned it up and made the syrup - we enjoyed watching the birds feed and the birds "defend" (?) the feeder. Fast forward, back home in Ephrata and we're seeing the same behavior. It's a lot of fun to see the intruder try to sneak a drink. Entertaining!

They are entertaining. The little guys startle the beejeezus out of me, divebombing and buzzing me, coming out of nowhere, when I'm the one who keeps their bottle filled with sugar water. No appreciation, I tell ya!

It's funny that you both bring this up. Last few years I've been working on flowers in the garden and a feeder. Found a couple of Zinnias they like, but an overwintered agastache turns out to be the real prize. Which is interesting because they wouldn't touch it last year. Now it's so popular that they have pretty much stopped using my feeder.

But to the point: I've seen some territorial behavior--the buzzing and energy they put into it makes it fairly obvious. Plus it usually results in an immediate exit from the area, which I assume is one chasing the other. But I've also seen some interplay that is much less clear to me. Not sure if it is siblings or mom/young. They put a little energy into the dance, a little back and forth and hovering and repositioning. But no vocalization, and definitely not the clear aggression that I would associate with a territorial interaction. A bit more of "I'm annoyed that you're here, but I'm not going to do anything about it." Which leads me to the familial presumption, but I have no idea if that's accurate or not.

An addition this year is a consistently-present male (Black-chinned)--normally it's just female/juvies that I see regularly. He usually shows up in the afternoons or evenings. Doesn't seem to cause much conflict with the birds that are their earlier in the day. However last week I saw him hop down off a tall plant cage and hover/move laterally back and forth over a 3-4' arch around the agastache. Back and forth several times, then returned to the cage perch. And then repeated. Eventually a not-male made itself clear, perching on a much shorter cage. There was something going on, but whatever it was didn't drive off the not-male--didn't really seem to provoke much reaction from it. Just kinda sat there and watched the male do this aerial sweeping back and forth around it. Still not sure what to make of it.

 

[Buzzy]

It's funny that you both bring this up. Last few years I've been working on flowers in the garden and a feeder. Found a couple of Zinnias they like, but an overwintered agastache turns out to be the real prize. Which is interesting because they wouldn't touch it last year. Now it's so popular that they have pretty much stopped using my feeder.

But to the point: I've seen some territorial behavior--the buzzing and energy they put into it makes it fairly obvious. Plus it usually results in an immediate exit from the area, which I assume is one chasing the other. But I've also seen some interplay that is much less clear to me. Not sure if it is siblings or mom/young. They put a little energy into the dance, a little back and forth and hovering and repositioning. But no vocalization, and definitely not the clear aggression that I would associate with a territorial interaction. A bit more of "I'm annoyed that you're here, but I'm not going to do anything about it." Which leads me to the familial presumption, but I have no idea if that's accurate or not.

An addition this year is a consistently-present male (Black-chinned)--normally it's just female/juvies that I see regularly. He usually shows up in the afternoons or evenings. Doesn't seem to cause much conflict with the birds that are their earlier in the day. However last week I saw him hop down off a tall plant cage and hover/move laterally back and forth over a 3-4' arch around the agastache. Back and forth several times, then returned to the cage perch. And then repeated. Eventually a not-male made itself clear, perching on a much shorter cage. There was something going on, but whatever it was didn't drive off the not-male--didn't really seem to provoke much reaction from it. Just kinda sat there and watched the male do this aerial sweeping back and forth around it. Still not sure what to make of it.

This is the first year we've had a hummingbird feeder so....... not much first hand experience in Ephrata observing their behavior. It has been fun watching one roost on the fiberoptic cable drop to the house then drop down and challenge other hummingbirds that get to close "to my feeder".

My wife has an incredible variety of flowers in our yard, about a week ago the tiger lilies started blooming, the hummingbirds love them - hollyhocks are a favorite as well. Yesterday I was pulling weeds from the tomato bed; there's hollyhocks just outside of the tomato bed - a hummingbird flew within a few feet of me, close enough that even this hard of hearing old guy heard it (and felt it). So darn cool!

 

[tkww]