Hi, I just found this forum the other day and have enjoyed reading everyone's posts, so I just wanted to join to say hello. I live in the mountains of northwestern Virginia and have been fascinated with hummingbirds all my life. I only have a very small, limited space for growing flowers to attract them where I live now, but I still seem to get quite a few, especially in August. Here's a still-frame from a video I shot last summer. When my sister saw it, she started calling me "The Hummingbird Whisperer"...! LOL!

Hey there Bill, Welcome!
We are glad to have you. You will fit right in with this bunch of hummerolics. We have a couple of members who have been blessed to have a hummer feed for a hand held feeder or right out of the palm of their hand.

BTW, the feeder you are holding is one of the favorite feeders of many of our hummers. I have two of those hanging right now and hope to increase the number as the season wears on.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Welcome Bill. What a picture. I hope you drop in often to say hello and let us know what is happening with you and the hummingbirds.

Dianne
Southeast Alabama
Heat Zone 8
Sunset Zone 31

Hi Bill, welcome to our group!



- Andrew - Ontario, Canada - Zone 6
- Won't Get Fooled Again ~ The Who.

Welcome to the forum Bill. I grew up in those mountains west of the Shenandoah Valley... beautiful area.

**********
Farmer Steve
Deluz, CA usda zone 10a

.

Awesome picture! Welcome to the forum!

Lisa

Lake Country
Southern Wisconsin
USDA Zone 5b
heat zone 4/5
sunset zone 41
http://thehummingbirdgarden.blogspot.com/

Hello Bill,


So glad you joined us! You certainly have the magic touch with hummers...
I'm lucky if one passes me by within 5 ft. If I may I ask, how long did it take for you to have that hummer sit on your finger?

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Welcome to the forum Bill!! What better way to introduce yourself to the group.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Hi Bill and

Your going to fit in to this group like tight pair of ~~~ fill in the blank ~~~

birdlegs
zone 5
S.E. Lower MI.

Hi Bill! Nice to have you join the forum. That's a great picture.

Priya
Zone 7, Maryland

Hello, Bill! Very cool pic!!!
How long did it take you to train that hummingbird to do that with you?

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Wow! Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

And yes, Susan Louise, it certainly was a thrill whenever a hummer would perch on my finger like that last summer. It actually happened several times, but I only caught it on video just once:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD3HuSBE-as

I didn't really have to "train" them to come sit on my finger, Diana. They just seem so naturally bold and fearless of pretty much anything. I guess it probably helped that all of my flowers and feeders are concentrated in a confined space on the small deck on the back of our house (it's about ten feet by thirty feet).

I spend so much time out on the deck in the summertime, I guess they got used to me being around. Then in August, on days whenever I'd get swarmed by several hummers zooming around at one time, I'd take most of the feeders down and hold one in my hand. As long as I sat perfectly still, they'd immediately come right to it to feed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow4jqZ60Jcc

After they'd gotten used to that, I decided to use my other hand to give them a "perch" to sit on. The slightest movement though, like when I couldn't keep from swallowing because of all the excitement, as you can see in the first video, was enough to scare them back up into flight mode.

The thing that really amazed me the most though was that there was no sensation of any weight on my finger at all whenever they'd perch on my finger, just a slight pinching feeling on the skin from their talons grabbing hold. (Oh, and you have to learn to not mind getting pooped on whenever they come that close! At least with hummers though it's only one tiny drop of clear liquid at a time!)

And yes, Penny, you're right that they seem to like the kind of feeder I was holding better than anything else. I bought four of them last year when Walmart was selling them for only 99 cents each. They didn't carry them this year, but I picked up a couple more at Lowe's which came with two small shepherd hooks that allow you to easily hang them right in amidst your flowers which is really cool!

I think the reason they like those small feeders best is because the hole is fairly large and the nectar is always bulging out right there (dripping out in fact), so they don't have to stick their beak or tongue in very far to get at the nectar. I bought a HummZinger Ultra feeder last year because the interior nectar guards seemed like such a good idea since I was having so much trouble with bees, but the hummers barely even touched it at all, presumably because of the tight hole they had to stick their beaks through. It probably felt like they were getting stuck in some kind of trap.

This year, I bought a couple platform feeders at Lowe's which are made by Garden Treasures that have a similar design:



The holes on these are smaller so I'm hoping that will keep most of the bees out without using nectar guards. The drawback of course is that it doesn't have a built-in ant moat, so I have to hang it from an external one. The hummers I've had so far this spring seem to like it pretty well though.

In any case, you can see all of my h'bird videos from last summer on my page at YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=VaMtnDude

I don't have a camera good enough for taking still pics yet, so I've stuck with mostly video so far. Many years ago, I borrowed my sister's 35mm camera, but I only got just one shot that I thought was worth keeping:



Since then, I've stuck mostly with video, and I was approached recently by a filmmaker in Hollywood who asked if he could use a few seconds of my h'bird footage in a documentary he was making about the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico. He never wrote back to thank me for my contribution though so I have no idea when the film is supposed to be finished.

Well, I'm sure I've rambled on enough for now! Thanks again for the warm welcome, everyone! It's so nice to find an online community like this because I don't know anyone in "real life" who shares my passion for hummers.

Thanks!


Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Bill You are defintely one of the bunch. I think many of us if not all can echo most of what you said. We all went nuts buying up the 99 cent walmart feeders last year. They were actually going to discontinue them last year as they hadn't been selling very well. I and several others wrote corportate and told them how much we all like the feeders and please to not discontinue them. I guess they decided to sell what stock they had in their warehouse before taking them out of theri inventory. Every now and then they are available on EBAY.



Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Thanks for the info, Penny. So which company manufactured the 99-cent Walmart feeders? (The stickers on the bottoms of mine washed off a long time ago.) Like I said, I found the exact same feeder at Lowe's this year, two on a card, along with two small shepherd hooks, made by Garden Treasures. The price was hardly comparable though at around $7 for just those four small items. I've got six of those small feeders now, so that should last me for at least several years (plus my expensive HummZinger, two platform feeders, a Perky Pet four-fountains feeder, four suction-cup window feeders...)

What? You have to have plenty of feeders on all four sides of the house, you know! ;-p

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Bill they are generic Chinese imports. I am not sure of who the actual vendor was that sold them to WalMart but chances are it may have been Garden treasures. I think they import nearly everything they sell from China

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

A big howdy to you Bill! Welcome to our forum where so many of us are hoping to have that wonderful experience you had - holding a feeder while a hummer sips! I had that happen last year and won't ever forget it...just maybe it will happen again...please... and although my hummer didn't sit on my finger he did check it out and flew in front of my glasees just like yours did. What a thrill...Thanks ever so much for sharing those wonderful videos!! There is nothing like the popularity of those .99 feeders. I think I bought the last few at our Walmart for .75 last year and they are not there this year.

Hey you are right in tune with feeders on each side of the house!

Carol
Milford, CT
Zone 6

Hi Bill and thanks for the explanation on how the hummer sat on your finger. With Russ as one exception
http://e-hummingbirds.com/ , I've hardly ever seen a RT sit on someone's finger! Now I know two ppl who can do it!

This is as far as I've gotten


I'll have to work on it.

Thanks for the link to your videos also - I'll enjoy seeing them.

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Diana, I'd be thrilled to have one sip from a feeder I was holding! I'll bet you anything you'll have one sitting on your finger this summer!

Carol

Carol R
Tennessee
USDA Hardiness Zone 7
Heat Zone 7

I sure do hope so, Carol! I guess the trick is to take all the other feeders down, eh?
But I'm really hoping they'd use the plants if the feeders are all down. What a quandary!

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Bill,

Welcome to the forum, you sound like me, always on my deck!


Diana,

Buy the Hat!

Pam NJ 6B

Hey Bill, whip out that Hummzinger again and take off the insect guards from the feeding ports. Bees and ants still will not be able to get into it; they're just for tiny flies and wasps that fly in and drown in the nectar. I used mine for a little while but found the same "hummer reluctance" to use that feeder, so I took them out and just manned up for the insect soup every couple of days when I changed the nectar. Not that bad really. And Hummzingers solve all bee and ant issues and are by far the easiest feeders to clean (just my opinion!).

Zone 7B
North Carolina Piedmont

Thanks, Matt. I do have my HummZinger out this season but without the nectar guards in place. It's been working okay so far, although I felt like a real fool last night when I brought it in to clean it and refill it. Just as I popped the lid off, one of those "jumping" black spiders appeared out of nowhere right on the back of my hand. I screamed like a little girl and danced a little jig while frantically brushing it off. (Spiders have always given me the creeps. I almost fainted during one particular scene in one of the early Harry Potter movies! I also have these awful recurring nightmares about being bitten by black widow spiders.)

Anyway, after I recovered from the fright and looked inside the cover, there was a big white spiderweb-y "nest" clinging to the lid, so apparently Mr. Arachno had been making himself right at home in there. He looked much larger than the open holes on the feeder, so apparently certain insects and bugs can compress themselves so they can squeeze and wiggle in through much smaller openings.

The main problem I had last year was a certain kind of small bees that are less than half an inch long. I don't know what they're called, but they're much smaller than most of the usual kinds of bees you see, and they can easily fit through the holes on certain feeders. I've even seen them floating upside down in the small 99-cent feeders from Walmart (which gave me pause and made me wonder how terrible and delightful it might be for a larger creature like me to find itself drowning in a large vat of yummy chocolate syrup...)

Anyway, the main problem of course is that having just one insect getting into the liquid quickly contaminates it with all kinds of bacteria and it gets all cloudy and murky in just a couple hours which makes the hummers stop eating from it altogether. I'm going to leave the nectar guards off as long as I can, but summer is just getting started around here and those little bees don't usually show up until late summmer, when the hummers are also hitting their peak as well. I just wish those little bees were even smaller so I could at least get the satisfaction of seeing the hummers eat a few of them!


Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Sorry to hear about the close encounter!...but it did make me laugh some. I suppose that's no consolation to you, though....

I have never had a spider in my Hummzingers yet, although I have learned the hard way to check underneath the perching rim before bringing it inside...wasps and other unwelcome insects have come in the house that way. And the "soup" that needs changing is always interesting to see what's met its sweet demise within. Yuck.

My main happiness with these feeders is the ease of cleaning. The bee, ant, squirrel, bat, and oriole protection is an added bonus. Free spiders is a new perk that I'll add to my list!

Zone 7B
North Carolina Piedmont

Inside I'm grinning ear to ear...LOL
Wish I could be a fly on the wall the next time Bill comes to the forum to see his face as header of the day...

Congrats Bill!!!!!

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

LOL I'm with ya Susan Louise!!

Diana
Upstate SC
Zone 7b

Diana,



Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5

Welcome to the Forum Bill and spectacular photo---thank you!! You obviously have an amazing magic touch with your hummers. Enjoy them this season.



Kathi and Michael Rock
Madison, Wisconsin
Zone 4/5

Thanks, Susan Louise and Diana. I just about fell out of the chair when I pulled up the forum page just now and my goofy mug was staring right back at me! I'm sure I must have looked just like this:

I'd noticed that the picture on the main page alternates every so often, but I never expected to see me on there! It's actually kinda embarrassing!

Many thanks to whoever made it possible!

Bill McClure
Zone 6A

Bill,

The header is changed everyday by BobKY...he chooses a new one as forum members post pics. I know when I see one of my pics there it makes my day and I know for that most everyone feels the same with it being a wonderful surprise...
Your pic is a cool pic....nothing to be embarrassed about...

Have a good night everyone...I'm going to bed...

Susan Louise
from Branford CT/ live in Lincoln NE
Zone 5