Hummingbirds!

One of my favorite things about the spring is the return of the hummingbirds. We've got'em all here: Ruby-throated, Rufous, ... oh, who am I kidding? I'm no gorram ornithologist, I just know they're pretty, they're dumb as rocks, they're basically bees with feathers, they entertain me, and they're pretty. Haven't seen one around the place yet, but S&L had their feeder up and running last weekend and already had a couple of customers so this morning I decided it was time to get my own going.

Now, you can buy hummingbird nectar, of course, and some folks do. But it's simple as pie to make your own; all you need is to dissolve some sugar in four times as much water, let it cool, and you're in. Hummingbirds are drawn to bright color; the first time I bought a feeder I got dive-bombed before I'd even put any nectar in the damned thing. Store-bought nectar has red food coloring in it, and you can do that if you want to. But if the feeder is already bright red that's good enough; they'll come. Funny thing; the expensive ones you buy at garden and birding stores and the like are really pretty, with lots of cool filigree and such, but they come in subtle, muted colors and don't attract birds terribly well. There's nothing subtle about a hummingbird; all he cares about is bright red or yellow. The cheap dollar-store feeders work best but the crappy plastic doesn't do UV very well and they come apart in a season or two. If you get an expensive one, use the food coloring.

The trouble with hummingbird nectar, as I learned my very first spring here, is that it's also the very perfect ant bait. It's just sugar water, but sugar water is an ant's idea of heaven. Leave a drop anywhere and they'll come for miles to drown in it, drown happy. If you offered an ant a delirious, sweaty, sex-filled afternoon with whatever ants use for Milla Jovovich, if only he'd leave your hummingbird feeder alone for that one afternoon, he'd sigh unhappily and turn you down flat. Then he'd stalk purposefully off and drown in hummingbird nectar. Happily.

So when you're making your nectar and filling the feeder with it, it is vitally important to be very, very neat. Don't splash that shit around, or you'll be up to your armpits in the industrious little bastards. After you fill the bottle but before you carry it out to the pole, you wanna wash the outside in warm water, get all that spilled sugar off the outside. Even then you'll need to clean rafts of dead ants - all of whom died stoned - out of the thing when you go to re-fill it, but at least you can keep the mess to a necessary minimum.

The hummingbirds come here for some sweaty sex of their own, and when they get going the males put on a helluva show. They park their lady loves on a juniper branch, then demonstrate their ardor and skill by flying straight up till you can barely see them, turning around and power-diving toward her; pulling up at the last second, flying straight up, then turning and doing it again. And again. All the time buzzing and chirping like demented ... well, hummingbirds. There's always some alpha male who tries to keep every other hummingbird except his own mate away from the feeder, and I've spent hours laughing at the greedy little SOB as he works himself into a hysterical lather diving at all the other birds, all the time they're getting more and more worked up while queuing for their turn, until finally he gives up his vain efforts and watches helplessly as a cloud of them descend. Seems like he get less of it than anybody.

Sure do love watching the little critters. Last year I had to get a taller pole, because Butch the tomcat worked out a perfect hummingbird-catching protocol. He'd tried running at the feeder from every possible angle, but they'd just hover till he was sailing through the air and then contemptuously flick away at the last second. But he figured out that if he crouched directly under the feeder they'd forget he was there: Then when one was in a perfect position he could spring straight up and he'd snag it every other time or so. Sometimes he lost it on the way down, before he could get his teeth in play, but still all too many very dead hummingbirds were ending up inside the lair. Butch wouldn't do useful things like catch rats - that was beneath him - but he loved him some hummingbirds. So I got a taller pole, which he considered a terribly dirty trick on my part, and the problem went away. This spring, of course, Butch himself went away so I guess that's the last of that.

Kinda wish I missed him more than I do, I must admit.