Hello.
My name is Sharon. My husband Bob and I live in Huntington Beach, Ca. (southern California coastal area)
I am a retired professional dog trainer, my husband Bob recently retired (industrial electrician).

We've put out feeders for many years, however since Bob's retirement, we have had much more opportunity to observe the hummer activity in our back yard together.
We affectionately call it watching the "hummer wars"...and indeed, the battles get rather nasty if not amusing at any given time of day.

We have 5 feeders out. 3 along a stretch of covered patio, one at the eastern edge of the house on a plant pole, and one small one attached to a garden window by our kitchen sink.

As I write this, we can see that there are at least 4-5 hummers that have been visiting on a regular basis, for at least a couple of months now.
I have tried to identify the main characters. However, it is very hard to tell what they actually are, breed-wise. They are either Allen's or Rufus...each bird we can see appear to be either young males or females. I tend to lean toward Allen's....since from what I've read so far, they frequent our location. But the Rufus migrates through here as well.
If I were to judge their breed by their behavior, I'd have to say they are Rufuses, I read they can be "hella-territorial", lol. And by golly, these little devils are sometimes hysterical defenders of space. But making a positive ID is difficult, especially for these realitive newbs to the bird-watching scene. There is also one Anna's that comes by occasionally.

This year, as a special treat, we have also witnessed a family of Orioles. They are extremely shy birds, but the male is strikingly beautiful yellow and black. They enjoy the feeders, and we've seen the male share his "food spot secrets" to his youngsters. Since they are so shy, they don't sit at the feeders for long, and they don't disturb the hummer residence at all.

So, without writing a book, I thought I'd register here and join in the discussions about these little creatures, and see if I can't learn a thing or two more about them.

By the way, love the selection of smilies you have here.

Hello Sharon
Welcome to our little family of Hummingbird fanatics. I believe that you will learn a lot from the group as we have several members who are very knowledgeable about hummingirds, their respective habitats and the plants that they nectar from.

Penny
NY
USDA hardiness zone 6
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Your Rufous should only be present during migration since they aren't coastal breeders. Other than adult males I can't tell the two apart and even that isn't always certain.

Thank you Penny, and Hi Ward.

I tend to think the hummingbirds we're seeing are Allen's for the reason you mentioned. Rufus doesn't live here, just migrates through. They migrate rather early too, if memory serves me.
But we know they've been here a couple of months at least. I don't know if they were migrating they'd stay that long.
However, we aren't very far from Mexico....the border anyway, lol.
Yet, these little peckerheads (said with affection) are very territorial. They display, skawk, and generally go to fisticuffs when any other hummer dare arrive near ALL of his feeders! There's another sentinal that does the same tenasious watch over the eastern feeders. Both my husband and I swear we can hear their little beaks striking the other from time to time, and after watching the shinnanigans between all these defenders and interlopers, we get tired for them!

Either way and no matter what type they are, they're still a constand source of entertainment.

ETA: now I'm going to learn-up on why my username is whacky.

Sharon, Im sure you will enjoy your time here and that can share many thoughts and photos with us.

Steve
Martinsville, In
Heat zone 6
Sunset zone 35

Sharon!!!!

Elle
Eastern Michigan
Zone 5

Welcome Sharon! You have to be logged in or you will get those rather cute names.

Here you go,http://www.network54.com/Forum/445702/message/1129063860/How+to+stay+logged+in

Pam
Matawan,NJ 6B

Welcome Sharon and Bob, I live up in the valley and have Allen,s year round, but there used to be only Anna's. the Rufus come through on a very short period. you could also be getting Black-chinned hummers, so keep a close watch on them,and enjoy. this site is in Orange County, and have nesting Black-chinned, Check it out.
http://www.starrranch.org/



Alan~S Cal

Thanks for that link Alan. I watched the mom sitting on the nest getting sleepy.....getting sleepy....
She was cute. Bookmarked it for sure.

And thank you Pam for the help. I posted first before reading that thread but it didn't take long to figure out, lol. I've been a member of other forums for years so I jumped ahead of myself a bit.

Bought another feeder today to place on the west end of our patio. It's a 6 seater and we're hoping to ease the wars by flooding them with choices!

It's either gonna work or we'll start "Hummer Apocolypse"

Alan, I also wanted to say that I very much remember....not so many years ago it seems, that the only humbirds we saw here in H.B. were Anna's. I very much agree with you.

I grew up in Simi Valley, and growing up, we had mainly ruby throats. Bright, deep red throats.
That was many years ago.

Sharon, The Ruby-throated Hummer is an Eastern spieces, what you were seeing would be Anna's, they have a Magenta color.

Alan~S Cal

I hope you enjoy the forum. When you have some time check out my websites.

Russ Thompson
http://e-hummingbirds.com
http://vimeo.com/hummingbirds
http://hummingbirds.photoshop.com
Louisville, Kentucky

That is a fabulous website Russ! Thank you for sharong it.

I especially enjoyed the forign hummers....some of those were wild looking! You are fortunate to have seen them. I've only seen pictures of those.

How long did it take to train that darn hummer Russ?