Hi -
This is a common experience. Hummingbirds are often very territorial. If
you have one feeder, often 1 hummingbird uses it and drives all the others
away. Same reason for 2 feeders - 2 birds. However if you have multiple
feeders, enough hummingbirds can gather that no one bird can dominate all
the others, and so the territoriality breaks down, and they actually seem
pretty tolerant of each other.
This dynamic occurs with other birds as well. Bernd Heinrich documented a
variant of this in "The Raven in Winter." Adult Ravens in Maine forests
where he studied them were monogamous and had year-round territories they
defended. The population had lots of young birds and others without
territories. If these birds found a large food source (a carcass) they
would recruit other non-territorial birds to it so they could build up a
large enough group to prevent being driven off by the territorial residents.
Wayne
From: obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Linda Perkins
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2016 10:38 PM
To: OBOL
Subject: [obol] How many hummingbird feeders? Astoria
I had an interesting hummingbird feeder experience last March. I was laid up
and couldn't go birding so I decided to bring the birds to me. Click! I
ordered some extra hummingbird feeders. So this has been my hummingbird
feeder experience (I live in Astoria): When I had one hummingbird feeder I
had one hummingbird. When I added another feeder I had 2 hummingbirds. When
I had 4 hummingbird feeders I had 4 hummingbirds. When I had 6 hummingbird
feeders I had maybe 9 birds and when I got 8 feeders I had about 75
hummingbirds. One feeder with 12 ports regularly had 15 birds feeding from
it at dusk at once. Birds would hover and share ports. (Most of my feeders
are big, one has 32 ports.)
I thought of this because someone reposted an old facebook video of 16
feeders on shepherd's hooks in someone's yard with about 50 birds. Anyone
out there have a similar experience?
Linda "Birding" Perkins
