Here's how it goes: there's this big wonderful red feeder with flowers painted on it, and it dispenses nice sugary water, sugary water of an infinite supply that I can make anytime. But there's this one asshole hummingbird who has gotten it into his head that the water is scarce, and he has monopolized the feeder and the entire space surrounding the feeder. Here's the little prick now:
Yes he looks very cute, and he is. But he's a bastard.
Why the animosity? Well, he sits up there on his branch and when any hummingbird of any size or any cuteness so much as approaches the space around the feeder, he viciously chases the intruder away. As a result, there are virtually no birds ever at the feeder but him, when he comes to reap his ill-gotten rewards:
A year ago there were scores of hummingbirds that would come and feed. They'd be by everyday swarming the feeder. Now nothing. Here's him again gloating over his little fiefdom he's established. Fat, bullheaded and self-satisfied, he'd make a great capitalist:
He knows not that he is judged.
I tried several things. I tried blasting him out of his tree with the hose (it was a weak spray but it would still shoo him off) but the stream didn't reach. I then tried moving the feeder to the other side of the deck. Surely there are plenty of other feeders in the area. He can go find another one to lord over like the others he's chased away.
But then he continued to sit in his branch, checking the empty mount every once a while to see if the feeder had returned. I started to feel sorry for him, so I put the feeder back. Who knows why he's picked up the behavior he has? Has his habitat been destroyed? Have the feeders stopped flowing like they used to? Perhaps he'll grow tired of his repetitive life of domination, or maybe not. Maybe the feeder will flourish again when he dies. Or maybe he's radicalized and taught his behavior to all the birds he's chased away and they're all taking up positions around feeders of their own, jealously guarding their contents. Maybe the same was done to him. Maybe he'll father little prick children and we can have a little oligarchy rise up around the feeder. Who am I to say? Oh well.
I've watched the other smaller birds and their activity around the seed feeder. Incredible creatures. So agile: they hop around vertically on the feeder wires, darting in and out of the holes, hopping straight into the air and doing half turn barrel rolls and dashing away. They traverse the faces of trees without a care for gravity or vertical orientation. Certain species will sit in the feeder and actually pick through the assorted nuts and seeds like bargain shoppers rummaging through a bargain bin, searching for their favorites and casting aside the ones they don't care about. Heh, birds.
