Hummingbirds are beautiful, even as they battle over feeders and flowers

Editor’s note: The following is a July 2023 encore article from Bill Schiess, who is presently in Alaska gathering a plethora of material for future articles.

With the arrival of warmer weather as June turned into July, my maltese cross flowers exploded as my copper roses started wilting. As bright red blossoms filled my large wildflower plot, about seven male rufous hummingbirds showed up – dominating the other hummingbirds in my backyard.

In May, I had a pair of black-chinned that established a nest in one of my neighbor’s thick lilac bushes, and a calliope build a nest in a wild rose bush in the back of my property. So to give them something to drink, I set out two sugar-water feeders by my raspberry patch, out of sight from the marauding rufous and the patch of flowers.

That did not stop the fighting. The rufous attacked after some of their females showed up.

They would set up in the bushes near the flowers and dive-bomb any back-chinned or calliope hummingbird that dared feed on the flowers. Others engaged in “hawking” postures by roosting in the trees above my two sugar-water feeders that I had set out in May when the black-chinned and the calliopes showed up.

I caught a few of the calliope sneaking into the maltese cross flowers that were deep into the thick foliage, harvesting nectar from the low-hanging blossoms. Occasionally, they would get up near the top and – boom – they had a couple of rufous after them. From time to time, a kestrel or a merlin would show up and the rufous would disappear, letting the “lesser” hummers steal from the feeders.

On July 4, we had about 25 guests show up for a barbeque with some staying for a few hours. Most of the human activities were near the feeders and the flowers, and the rufous mostly gave us a wide berth.

But after the guests were gone, they came out in force and, for some reason, they began displaying their iridescent throat patches both at the feeders and flowers. It was as if they did not want to be outdone by the fireworks later that evening.

Of the three main species of hummers in Idaho, the rufous is the most recorded on birding reports, with the black-chinned running second. In third place is the smallest bird of Idaho, the calliope; that may be my favorite, with magenta stripes on its neck and its habit of “hawking” for small insects to eat.

The rufous is the most social with humans. Sometimes, they will buzz me while I’m trying to take a nap in the shade. Both genders and all ages are very aggressive; they ought to be in the MMA. Depending on the angle of the sun and their aggressiveness, their throat patches will glow a different color from green, orange and red.

Both sexes of the black-chinned are small, green-backed hummers. The female has a white throat and chest while the male has a black throat with the bottom being a brilliant purple. The purple is about two rows of feathers that glows only when the light hits it at a certain angle. Both genders sit erect while perching.

The magenta feathered rays of the calliope appear black until the light reflects from them. These tiny birds weigh less than a ping-pong ball and even appear smaller when they are perched because of the tendency to hunch over. When they become agitated, they will fight any other bird, even a red-tailed hawk, if necessary.

If you are interested in trying to attract hummingbirds, fresh sugar water at a ratio of one part of sugar to three parts of water works best for me. Planting flowers like maltese cross, hollyhocks or honey suckles in large numbers will eventually bring them in. They like the feeders placed in the same place each year.

Naturally, we do not have many hummers in the Rexburg area; however, Ririe, Pocatello, Teton Valley, Spencer and forest villages with running water nearby will have them in abundance. But over the years, I have furnished food, cover and water for them and they keep increasing because of those efforts.

Have a wonderful summer and play safe in the great outdoors.