04/08/2025
This little hummingbird. (Sorry for the low res. He never sits still when I have my phone handy) He makes his presence known when I’m outside gardening. He doesn’t linger long but always chatters to me. He hovers outside my bedroom window when the feeder is low. Yesterday, I was prepping an area at my parents house for a blue butterfly garden and he buzzed me a few times, then hovered directly in front of me at eye level, then flitted over to the broken feeder I’ve been intending to replace, and very slowly sat on a perch, then looked over at me. He then boomeranged around me and back to the feeder and looked at me again and went through the motion of using the feeder (bottom broken contains no liquid), looked at me again for a long time. Then flew toward me and away chattering. This red and blue feeder is his present to replace the broken one. He showed up last year as an overly aggressive adolescent, spending more time guarding than feeding. I talked to a birder who told me the more aggressive adolescent males often perish in their first migration from malnutrition and since he claimed our yard, putting up more feeders spaced far apart, could help. I guess it worked, though he is still incredibly territorial and now I have a hummingbird for a boss. ;)
