On 7/15/2011 12:38 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
Another excellent hummer capture!
> It would be nice if life were so simple. I've concluded that I will have to
> increase DOF before I ever get the male in focus. He always picks a feeding
> point that is out of sight from my position, and, with any sudden movement,
> he is gone. I think this stems from the fact that the females are always
> dominant, and give the males a hard time when they approach the feeder.
Interesting. The main species here, Anna's, year round, and Allen's, commuters,
have males dominant most of the time.
They will stake out a territory and fiercely defend it. That's annoying if one
has feeders and would like to see more
birds. The exception is with females with chicks, who take no crap from
anybody, including the males.
I used to have a girlfriend who rehabbed hummers, my one back deck and backyard
full of cages all summer. She had a pair
of abandoned Anna's eggs that hatched. Brother and sister were cute as all get
out, and got along fine in a cage as they
grew. Until one day - wham - the hormones kicked in, and the male started
beating up on his sister. Even in the 4x6x8'
final cage before release he had her cowed down into a corner of the bottom. We
released them a bit earlier than usual,
just to get her free of him.
The real tough guys are the Rufous hummingbirds. They look like Allen's, but
only travel through on migration. They will
horn in on any other hummer territories.
Moose
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