Meredith!!!!
Boy, you held REALLY steady!!!! I could hear it chattering & the wings humming. He sure didn't want that female horning in did he? NO! She's MINE! ALLLLLLLLLL MINE! Get out of here & go find your own human to feed you, I have dibs on this one!

I'm so glad you guys liked the video- I was on cloud 9!

I get the feeling Ann really liked it.

Yesterday I saw a Rufous doing his dive display, that is so amazing, he went up so high and then into the dive and straight back up again, he did that a couple of times.

Rufous male and female


This male had been at the feeder and looked like he was very wet, he sat all fluffed up with his tail feathers flaired, then he flew over by the evergreen tree and landed in the grass, I thought he was maybe injured or something, so I went out with camera in hand and got a few shots, when I got too close he flew into a shrub and started to preen so I guess he had taken a bath and was just sunning himself. I left him in peace to finish his grooming.

That rufous is so cute! They say we get stray rufous in Atlanta but I've only seen the ruby throats.

Meredith - Fantastic video! He was determined not to let that female have any. I hope they are a pair and you get to see the babies.

mellielong said:I get the feeling Ann really liked it.

I did, I did!

Margaret, we watched a hummer thing on TV I guess last year sometime where they showed the rufous doing that dive thing to impress the female. The had some special, super duper sound equipment too that recorded the sound they make when doing that. It was pretty cool. They couldn't figure out though if the sound was made by the hummer in his throat or whatever or if it was something with his body as he went that fast that made the sound. And then they said they weren't sure if all hummers do that or only some or only the rufous.

Ann, I think I have only seen the Rufous doing it, I'm sure I have never seen the Calliope doing it, I will pay more attention from now on.

Our usual early morning visitor back to its favorite spot. It is a nice cool day, dashing in and out. And always got to make a stop at the tropical milkweeds too

This pictureis from my parents house in NE PA last weekend. There are 8 hummers in this picture and that isn't all of them that were flying around that night. My mom said someone recently told her to take the highest number of then that you've seen at once and multiply it by 6 and that's how many are around. We had never heard that before and I don't know if there is any truth to it or not. I have a feeder I want to put out at my house, but we have yet to see any hummers here. I'm going to put it out and see what happens!

Wow, I never get more than two

luvsgrtdanes said:Wow, I never get more than two

There has always been a ton of them at their house! I have yet to see any here, but I'm going to try!

Just be patient Jen & give them time to become accustomed to your feeder. If you hang it they will come.

Once they find your feeder to be a good food source they'll keep coming back.

Wow!! That's a lot of hummers! I'm excited to hang my feeder and see what happens!

Not much action here for quite some time, guess everyone has been busy.

After this link was posted, http://www.daybreakimagery.com... I can't remember who posted it, anyway, Thursday, Aug, 7th, I had DH put a bracket up to hang the # 2 feeder closer to #1, it is about 25 feet away, the second day I started to see more hummers at the #1 feeder, and today I couldn't believe it when I saw 5 hummers chasing each other around the garden, the most I have ever seen at one time here, so today I had him put another bracket on the fence to hang #3 feeder, it is about 20 feet from #2 feeder, it will be interesting to see if I get even more of the little darlings zipping around the garden.

I have a large potted Bee Balm on the patio, the bees and hummers love it, the photos were taken through double windows and I had to aim the camera through the deck railing, what you won't do to photograph a hummer, but still look pretty good.

Woooooooooooo Hooooooooooooo Margaret!!!! Great photos btw. I'm so glad to hear that grouping the feeders is working out so well for you. I am noticing 2 hummers feeding at one time at 1 feeder now that I grouped mine. Or there will be 1 feeding at 1 & another on the other feeder -- these 2 feeders are2 or 2.5' apart. The third feeder is farther but maybe only 20' from the 2. At this one I have also observed at least 2 of the hummers mol "getting along" most of the time although I have not witnessed 2 hummers ON that feeder at 1 time.

Thank you Ann, and that's great that your seeing more too!! Just a short time ago there were 3 hummer fighting around #1 feeder, only one stayed to drink, it is the one in front of the kitchen window, I can't put them any closer but it looks like it works even with the distance that I have them, it was fun to see the 3, lots more activity for sure.

I can't say that I've had more activity but it seems like they aren't fighting as much & that 1 hummer is not totally dominating a given feeder.

Okay, this morning was definitely a wake-up call on the increasing numbers of migrating hummers!
Actually, my home crew left quite a while ago, and since then there's been small numbers of hummers stopping here to get fattened up again. But this weekend action at the feeders and flowers became really busy, so I added another feeder and may go out to the shed to look for more later. The Flame Acanthus is still blooming (although much less than last month) morning glories, Rose Pavonia, 4-o'clocks and still have Turks Cap blooming also.