Hummingbird Feeder Visitors

Anna’s Hummingbird is our year round and most common visitor, but since I got this good shot of a Rufous Hummingbird I posted it. By now I believe most of them have headed back down south to escape the cold weather here. The Hairy Woodpecker was a surprising visitor to one of our three feeders. Then we have the Carpenter Ants. Notice how many have climbed into the feeder and died in there.

I’m sure that many of you out there love hummingbirds and have a feeder for them. Here in the NW our two main species are Anna’s Hummingbird and the Rufous Hummingbird. And as you may know experts claim the feeders require 1 cup of water mixed with 4 cups of water, and never add honey which can cause fungal explosion in them. Then, after you get the feeder filled and posted, other animals also show up at the feeder. Bees and wasps are expected and I was not surprised to see them. They intimidate the hummingbirds, but not for a very long period and the hummers seem to get used to it. Yet a much larger bird also found its way into the feeder. Observing this bird I assumed it was some kind of sapsucker. What other bird species would go after a hummingbird feeder? But after using my picture to identify the species I was very surprised to find that it was actually woodpecker, a Hairy Woodpecker. And this bird caused a lot of the feeder food to empty out. Could be from making it leak, but these woodpeckers are sap drinkers, too. I also noticed one of my favorite insects finding its way in – ants. I love bugs and I was fascinated watching these carpenter ants climb up the side post of our deck, crawl upside down on the deck cover, and find their way into the feeder. I would have let this go on but many of the little creatures actually climbed into the feeder and died inside of it. So how did I fix these problems? It was pretty easy. The woodpecker went away after several visits and has not returned. To protect against the ants I moved that feeder to a new location away from the post they were climbing up. For a couple of weeks now it seems to have worked.

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