three female hummingbirds chasing male from feeder

9 years ago

I have been watching most of the summer and spring, The hummingbirds have been plentiful both male and especially females.

All are ruby throats, and for about three weeks it seemed that it was going to be females only, and then a male showed up. Soon after he started chasing females from the feeders, at that time I thought I had at least a dozen different females and he was ruthless, then another male showed up, at first I thought he was another female, but when he landed at the feeder attached to the window he had a real narrow red band just under the metallic green headdress, and it seemed that he took turns with the other male a few days.

Later another hummingbird male showed, I thought it was a black chin hummingbird but could never see any purple around the neck, just a narrow red band and the tell-tell sign a solid black head not green, at that point the black headed hummer took over. He chased everything that moved toward the two feeders.

Its been almost two week and the black headed hummer had something happen, that took him and me by surprise, all the females have started chasing all the males, It took going outside to see what was really happening, there's three females that chase the black headed male every time he starts to chase a single female.

What I couldn't see from inside, was that they are taking turns going to the feeder, while the other two females chase the male.
I watch this display go on for the good part of two hours, and the ladies finely flew off leaving the male to himself. Has anyone ever seen this behavior?

It started the same every time with the male hid, and one of the females would come to the feeder the male would come out of nowhere and chase was started with a male chasing the feeder female,with the male right behind her, but then came the two females that were hiding too, and they would fly in between the female being chased and the male, the original bird being chased would just fly off once the male was distracted by the two females. the original one would go to the feeder, and feed to her content.

It took me almost thirty minutes to figure it out, because of the speed they were going, but where I was setting was the best place I could have been, there were several times when they would get so close to me, I thought I was going to get hit too

I am going to try and get some video of this if it happens again tomorrow, all I have is a fairly good flip video camera, I'm just no sure the camera will be fast enough, we'll see. Is there away to post video here?

Comments (2)

mehitabel
9 years ago
Plantnut, you certainly are a careful observer! Makes sense to me that one of them will take advantage of the male being busy chasing someone else to feed in peace. In fact I think I've read about that. Two females (or juvies) ganging up on a male, don't think I've encountered that.

You're lucky to have so much activity. I love the zooming and chasing. Brings the air to life.

This year I put a third feeder out of sight of the other two so no one could guard all three. I've only seen a hummer on the third feeder once, but it's always emptier than the other two.
plantnut65
Original Author
9 years ago
two days after the post, a new male came to the feeders, I'm not sure, it may be the one earlier I though was a female, but later in the day He was perched on top of the post the holds the feeders, and he turn slightly showing red coming from the back of the left side of his neck an area about 1/8" wide by a 1/2" to 3/4", I'm assuming he a juvenile, but he has taken control, all the other males are still around but he runs them off just like he does the females, today he made friends with a female, it worries me, is it not a little late for mating.

The bird feeders are all setup close to he end of the trailer, no bird is farther than 3 foot from the window, so far the birds have had no problem with the closeness, other than the newest hummer will get cranky every now and then, and tries to chase the cardinals that come to the feeders, he never succeeds but it doesn't stop him from trying.

I changed the feeders around yesterday trying to get ants in tack, and I had a few surprises as the other birds would go to a hummer feeder then look puzzled, what was cute was my favorite of the bird, birds was a titmouse that landed on the hummer feeder and scooted all the way around the feeder looking for the food, then started picking the container that holds the sugar mixture, he found his food foot above his head.

I did try an get some video but because of the speed and the lack of shutter speed, all i got was a lot of green and a blur of a bird here and there. It is so amazing how unbelievably our eyes are! I'm not sure an automated camera can keep up with the wide area of movement that the hummers cover even in close areas.