Cindy really enjoys visiting other people's gardens because it means she can enjoy the garden without compiling a list of things she needs to do; weeds that need to be pulled, plants that need to be fertilized, bird feeders that need to be filled, and on and on and on in the gardener's endless list of chores.
So a couple of weeks ago we went to a party at a friend's house and were sitting out on her patio enjoying her garden and watching the hummingbirds at the feeder. Lots of hummingbirds, all at the same feeder.
We've never seen more than one hummingbird actually eating at our feeders at any one time. Each feeder is usually claimed by a dominant male bird who sits up in the Lemonadeberry tree and guards the feeder from intruders. If any other hummer dares to show up and try to eat there, the "owner" appears and chases him off in high-speed acrobatic moves the Navy's Blue Angels would envy.
So we watched in astonishment as three, four, five, six and up to seven hummers congregated and sat down to eat at the feeder at the same time with only a few buzz-offs.
We finally noticed that most of the birds did not have the colorful throat feathers of adult male hummers and decided that these birds must either be females or, more likely, juvenile birds that had just recently hatched out of a nest.
I had seen that behavior before: Daddy Bird lets the young ones feed at "his" feeder for a couple of weeks, then chases them off to go find their own sources of food. No "boomerang" chicks for Hummingbirds, it's "go find your own feeder, kid".
I'm always amazed by these wonderful birds.
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