I have a flock of birds (not sure what type .. the loudest ones?) that have built a nest around / in the air conditioner in my bedroom window. They have been waking me up like a fucking car alarm going off every god damned morning at the crack of dawn for a week straight.

This made me slightly less likely to kill them all.

Thanks.

Sorry to hear that, BT.

I don't mind the singing birds in the morning, but the "Caw! Caw!" types drive me nuts.

Around here we have doves that sound like "koo-koo-cachoo" just before sunrise.

Humming birds are so amazing

Sounds like there's an SLR going off in burst mode, kind of distracting.

Hummingbirds are perhaps the most beautiful animal in existence.

Why won't they land?

A hummingbird flew into my house two weeks ago and couldn't find his way back out.

I cornered him in a windowsill and he landed and stopped trying to fly. He was completely still and let me pick him up in my hands. I brought him outside, set him on the ground, and he flew away.

The whole time I was thinking to myself: " HOLYSHIT IM HOLDING A HUMMINGBIRD!!"


(and yes, in my world all hummingbirds are male for some unknown reason)

So they sound like oversized mosquitoes. Huh.

*WINGS

Adding video to channels (Wings) - requested by calvados.

In the early to mid-nineties I was an oyster farmer on a very isolated little island, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Every couple weeks or so I'd take my little motor boat to the nearest village, where I'd chill for a few days with a crew of birders and naturalists working for the Federal Gov't. After a few beers, etc. out on the deck of the government house in the village, one cat would break out the high-end government audio and play recordings of different bird calls, bringing various anomalous birds into view by f**king with their adorable little minds. (This guy is the Elvis of the BC birder community.)

Anyway, I saw him coax an Anna's hummingbird to fly into his mouth.

Love the stories!

This is so nuts!

D'oh! I've never seen a hummingbird myself.. so this is actually the first time I've realised that they do, actually... hum.

Awesome!

Apart from Rush Limbaugh, do Hummingbirds have any natural enemies?

>> ^rougy:
Sorry to hear that, BT.
I don't mind the singing birds in the morning, but the "Caw! Caw!" types drive me nuts.
Around here we have doves that sound like "koo-koo-cachoo" just before sunrise.


I think you might have a Bill Cosby in your garden.

Way cool. This is just awesome!

I have a similar story as volumptuous. Late one night last fall, I was working in my garage. It is a large two story garage with overhead doors on both front and back. I had both open and decided to close the rear door. Just as I did, I heard what I thought was someone walking around the outside of my garage. After a short freak out session, (I live alone in the middle of the woods and it was well after midnight)I found the culprit to be a hummingbird flying between the floor joists overhead. For some strange reason he wouldn't fly low and out the doors so I got a ladder and put my hand near where he was. He landed on it a few times and as I brought my hand down to show him the door he flew back up.

After a half hour of chasing him back and forth, I finally got him to land on my hand where I could wrap my fingers around him and take him outside. I couldn't believe how light he was! It was like I was just holding a feather in my hand. I opened my hand and he just sat there watching me so I put him on a tree branch. After a minute he flew off. Amazing little bugger.

I put up a humming bird feeder in my years 3 years ago, and they're still not used to me. I see them feeding from it through the window, but if I'm outside, they won't go near it.

>> ^volumptuous:
A hummingbird flew into my house two weeks ago and couldn't find his way back out.
I cornered him in a windowsill and he landed and stopped trying to fly. He was completely still and let me pick him up in my hands. I brought him outside, set him on the ground, and he flew away.
The whole time I was thinking to myself: " HOLYSHIT IM HOLDING A HUMMINGBIRD!!"

(and yes, in my world all hummingbirds are male for some unknown reason)



I had the same experience with a Cardinal. The little guy (I know it was male in this case) woke me up from a nap flapping against my window. He looked so terrified as I was carrying him through the apartment, but flew off just fine.

I love hummingbirds, my parents have some bottlebrush shrubs outside their dining room window and they're always zooming around them in the summertime. They're remarkably aggressive when other hummingbirds are around.

Ok, since were all tossing in hummingbird stories, here's mine: Years ago I was working at a visitor information center in San Diego. There used to be a snack bar, and we had a wall of glass panes that surrounded the patio tables and protected customers from the wind which blew off the bay. Part of my job at the time was to clean these glass windows as they'd get hit with seagull shit from time to time.

Anyway, one morning I'm cleaning the glass and I find an "impact print" on one of the windows. I look down and find a dead hummingbird. Upon closer inspection, I find another hummingbird which was very much alive, but dazed and confused. I'm assuming they were flitting along and never knew what hit them. Me and my manager rescued the live one, and eventually nursed it back to health by using a Hi-C Fruit Punch juice box. We basically made an impromptu bird feeder by dipping the straw and then plugging it, therefore capturing the liquid in the straw and letting the hummingbird nurse from it. It's tongue would shoot straight out and up into the straw, repeatedly; reminded me of a tattoo gun or sewing machine.

At one point, the hummingbird was perched on my finger for about 5 minutes and I'll never forget it. How tiny it was, and how iridescent it's feathers were. You know those paint jobs where the light changes the color depending on your perspective? Well, those don't hold a candle to that hummingbird's coat. Truly beautiful in every sense of the word.

He eventually built up enough strength and about 2 hours later, we set him free.

Is it just me or is it impossible to think of a cooler bird without adding a weapons platform?

My personal story is about a hummingbird, and maybe his/her kids, that have visited me every other day every summer for the past 5 years. I will be working at my computer, and without a word of a lie, the little bugger(s) will come in through the open door, hover by my monitor, seemingly check out what I'm doing, I say "Oh hai, sup?", then (s)he leaves.

If I'm on the sift, I always upvote what video I'm watching, just in case. I figure their internet is down.

Humming Bird

by D.H. Lawrence


I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.

Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.

I believe there were no flowers, then,
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.

Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.

I saved one from a baking hot Subway restaraunt window, just cornered him and made a ball around him with my hands.