It’s not unusual thing for us humans. We try to solve one problem and end up creating another. Although this isn’t a really bad problem.
Earlier this summer, I noticed the syrup level in my hummingbird feeder seemed to be dropping rather quickly. There were a lot of birds around, but still, it was going down pretty fast. Then I noticed a small drip on the bottom. The plastic bottom of the feeder had cracked. No wonder the syrup was going down so far. It could also explain the ant party on the ground below.
So I dug out an old feeder I stopped using a few years ago. The reason I had stopped using it is that it holds too much syrup. A have a lot of hummingbirds in the area, but they still couldn’t drink it fast enough. And after a while, the mixture of sugar and water can start to turn. I even suspect it starts to ferment a bit.
Here’s the thing. No one needs fermented hummingbird food, because no one needs drunk hummingbirds around. They fly at the speed of light and have big pointy things out front. One wrong move and you could have an intoxicated hummingbird stuck in your forehead. So to save myself from that, I stopped using the big feeder. But I put it back in service.
Then I got a replacement for the feeder and got it fixed up and ready to go. I hadn’t put a lot of juice in the old one, but it still had some in it, so I decided I should just put two feeders out.
After all, the birds seemed to constantly fight over the one feeder, so maybe having a second fairly close would stop them from fighting. So I moved one of the feeders to the other end of the deck, giving me a hummingbird feeder at each end. Maybe it would even attract more birds.
That part may have worked. I do seem to have a lot of hummingbirds around. But it did not stop the fighting. If anything, it made it worse. There are a few birds that seem to think the own both, and will fly up and down the deck trying to defend both feeders. It has made the deck a pretty hazardous area. Exciting, and a fun place to watch the hummingbirds, but they don’t seem to take much notice of humans and seem to have the attitude that we are responsible for our own safety.
There has yet to be a collision. The little things are pretty quick to react. But there have been a couple of near misses. So I may have to relocate my second feeder so myself and others are not sitting in the flight path.
It always amazes me how something that seems so delicate can attack and slam into each other with such force and just continue on. I just do not wish to participate in their little hummingbird games. Far to rough for me.
So one feeder must move, once I find a suitable location. In the meantime, I’ll just continue to duck.
