HOW TO ATTRACT MANY BIRDS AT ONCE
Here is a tip that I learned from a website
that is no longer up. The basic premise is to
group your feeders at certain times of the year. This goes
against the general idea that feeders should be spaced so that
one bird cannot guard more than one feeder. For the spring and
early summer, the prevailing wisdom is probably correct in my
experience, at least if you do not ordinarily get a lot of
hummingbirds at once. But in the fall, if you are on the migratory path,
grouping those feeders will bring enough hummers that any bird
will quickly give up on trying to fend off others, and even if
he doesn't, he efforts will likely be futile.
Can you count all the hummingbirds in the
photo?
The above photo shows my grouping of three
feeders as well as a pancake style feeder off to the right. At
the time of this photo, there were approximately forty
hummingbirds around the feeder. The most I could get in one
photo was seventeen. Do you see them all? (Scroll to the
bottom if you need some help)
The
birds reminded of the cars waiting in line for gas I had seen
earlier the day this was taken.
(Right
after Hurricane Rita swept through)
After photographing around the feeders for a
while, I looked up and realized that there were about as many
birds perched near the feeders as there were actively feeding.
See how many you can find in this photo.
(Scroll to bottom for help)
On the whole, from a photographic perspective,
I found it more difficult to get acceptable shots of these
birds, but I did get a few. I only had to wait about 30
seconds from the point that I sat down for continuous feeding
action. This is a far cry from my usual 2 hour session where I
get 10 shots or so. However, the birds are far more frantic
and do not take their time around the feeders like they do
when they are the only bird around. But it sure is fun
watching the activity of this many birds at once. This was
about the best I could do today on the up close shots.
Here's some help with the bird hunt photos:
17 Birds by my count above.
13 here, including two flying.
Back
|
Hummingbird Page
