Inside the Outdoors: Hummingbirds compete for food, and our attention

Sometimes the full impact of a gift is not evident when it’s received.

But with time, we might discover it to be “a gift that keeps on giving,” as the saying goes.

One of the gifts I received this Father’s Day was a hummingbird feeder. Not just any feeder, designed to serve up the sugar water that hummers are attracted to.

My feeder was of blown glass, with streaks and swirls of red and orange running through it, glowing brightly when sunlight streams through it. Almost a piece of art, as hummingbird feeders go.

Hummingbirds come to feeders for a reward much like what they receive when they visit flowers to collect nectar in their slender, elongated bills. The formula for feeder “nectar” is commonly one part sugar to four parts water.

The nectar in flowers varies from one variety to another, differing in sugar concentration and viscosity. Flower nectar is the reward — the persuasion, if you will — for birds or insects to stop and collect it, and as they move from one flower to another, pollinate the plant and make seed development possible.

Plant nectars are commonly made up of three sugars: sucrose, glucose and dextrose, so we don’t have to feel especially guilty over attracting hummers with our kitchen brand, which is sucrose.

I hung my feeder from a sturdy lower branch of a tall black spruce, a place where it would be both visible from our front windows and offer shelter overhead, with plenty of natural perches close by.

Sooner than I expected, the first hummer arrived. Resting on one of the feeder’s four perches, the hummer plunged its needle-like bill into the hole in the center of a yellow tin replica of a flower, whose purpose on the feeder was to complete the deception.

That first hummingbird at our feeder was a “wow” moment, given the fact that hummingbirds are a rarity compared to the ubiquitous robin, blue jay or chickadee. But since that June Sunday, the feeder has hosted multiple hummers.

The tiny visitors — weighing about as much as a nickel, far less than an ounce — keep us busy supplying and resupplying them.

Hummingbirds are intriguing for many reasons. Besides their miniature size and a diet that seems to give them more in common with pollinating insects than birds, their aeronautical abilities are unique.

Comparing hummers to other birds is like comparing airplanes to a helicopter. While some hawks may hover, no birds other than hummingbirds have the ability not just to hove, but to fly backward or fly in any direction.

Also unique is the fact that their wings are essentially invisible to the eye, beating so rapidly in their unique arcs that they buzz like insects; “humming,” as their name declares.

And, while many songbirds are bright with color, like the brilliant orange of an oriole the rich blue of an indigo bunting, or the intense red of the cardinal, those colors are muted compared to the iridescence of a hummingbird.

Iridescence is the quality to change color or color intensity — to almost glow, in some cases — as the angle of illumination or one’s angle of view changes.

Iridescence is not characteristic of feathers in all birds. Far from it. Some birds have it in small amounts, like the small speculum patches on the wings of certain ducks and the heads of some waterfowl.

From its brilliant ruby-colored throat, to the dazzling green of its head, shoulders and back, nature has given the ruby-throated hummingbird far more of this quality than most birds.

Over these June and July weeks I’ve been able to observe not only the hummer’s beauty, but also its behavior. As our feeder began attracting multiple birds at the same time, I’ve had a ringside seat to watch them interact with one another.

I soon began to notice a constant competitiveness at the feeder. Almost without fail, a hummer would drive away one or two others that approached the feeder. Only rarely would I see two at the feeder at the same time.

This seemed different from the territorial behavior we expect birds to exhibit during breeding season. Male robins, for instance, engaging in scrappy territorial “dust-ups” in spring and early summer.

But here we are in early August, well beyond that breeding season urge to dominate and claim a mate.

Food supply and survival seem to be the answer. It is said that because of its small size and high energy output, a hummingbird is never more than hours away from starvation, with an almost constant need to feed.

As described by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology — one of the premier authorities on birds — hummingbirds will jealously guard and compete with other hummers for blooming, nectar-producing flowers.

When nectar is depleted in flowers nearby, a hummingbird must search — sometimes far and wide — for more blooms that still bear nectar.

Thus, every blooming flower has survival value to a hummingbird. Whereas competitiveness for a mate is seasonal, competitiveness for food is constant.

A hummingbird is not programmed by instinct or experience to distinguish between a real flower that provides nectar and a feeder offering nectar-like sugar water. Food is food, and another hummingbird is seen as competition; potentially life and death competition.

Behavior that has all the earmarks of bullying can perhaps in the hummingbird’s case be forgiven!