[Tweeters] Ravenous Anna's feeding at night

[Robert O'Brien]

Hummingbird experience in Portland
.
I have been feeding hummingbirds (both species) for 52 years here.  In
recent decades the feeder is right outside a dining room window where I
usually sit to work on things.  The feeder is well lit by the interior
lights.
1.  It seems that the female sat on the feeder while it was still light,
and then simply remained into the night?  As opposed to flying in during
the night?
2.  I have never seen a hummingbird feed post dusk, never at 'night'  I've
looked for this, especially when temperatures are low.
One winter decades ago it got to 6 degrees every night for a week.  A
female spent the night on the ground among low vegetation, 15' from the
feeder which I took in every night.  I got up predawn to replace it and the
female immediately flew up to feed.  Almost as if she was waiting for it to
be replaced.
Undoubtedly she was in torpor during the night but had already emerged as
she flew up immediately.  It's possible she 'could' have fed at night if
the feeder had been heated and left outside.  No way to know though.  In
the recent freeze hummers came to the feeder at quite dark dusk, but never
at 'night'.
3.  As to the 'tongue infection'   I have seen this only once in these 5+
decades.  As Nadine states it is very, very hard to see/watch and very
likely fatal.  If that was happening with the night-feeding female, I
believe it would be visible.  The hummer would actually be unable to get
its tongue into the feeder because it hangs out to the side..  At the time
I had it here, there was at least one other report on Tweeters of this
occurrence.  Perhaps the disease was going around?  Anyhow I'm happy it has
only occurred once here.
4.  If the water in a feeder freezes, it is pure water that freezes and the
sugar remains in the smaller volume of water.  With progressive freezing
into cold weather the result is a very small amount of liquid at the very
bottom that is very high in sugar concentration.  Likely so high that it
causes serious health problems.  In this case the hummer might remain
simply because it is getting no nutrition as its intestines cease to
function properly.  This can only happen during freezing conditions.
5.  Perhaps some other disease?  Anyhow a very interesting observation.

Bob OBrien  Portland


On Sun, Feb 11, 2024 at 9:29 PM N D <drisseq.n at gmail.com> wrote:


> Jill, I've got several theories for you. It could be a combo of two or

> more of them too.

>

> In the last ten years of feeding hummers, I’ve noticed that a lot of my

> female Anna's get chased away so much during the day (by the males) that

> _it seems_ the only time they can get a good drink is in the evenings/dawn

> when the sun is down. So around that time they can hog the feeder, quietly.

>

> Hummers do feed at night (evenings and mornings when it’s dark) despite

> being mainly diurnal, and with the long dark nights right now, there are

> fewer insects around for them to find by sight too.

>

> It could be that you have a nesting female too. Nesting females will sit

> long and only survive on insects close to the nest during the day but will

> leave the nest just for a while and drink in the evening/darker light when

> there are fewer active predators to find the nest/eggs. (I remember this

> was how I could tell when they were nesting and would quietly wait for them

> to feed before bed, and then try to follow their course to figure out where

> the nest was located, just so I could be aware of it.)

>

>

> It's unlikely it's for the following reason and I don't want to concern

> you too much, but one other thing I would check is if your hummer is ok in

> terms of tongue health. Some folks don't clean their feeders enough or

> properly, and this in turn causes a fungal infection in hummers, with black

> mold on the feeders - *and in the ports especially* - or in the liquid

> itself.  The infection then inflames the tongue and it causes them to not

> be able to retract the tongue. After a while they starve because they can’t

> feed properly.

> The fungal infection however, is really unpleasant to watch, and is

> painful for the birds as they cannot get their tongue back in their mouth

> and they also starve.  The infected bird will also appear to wobble on its

> perch as it strives to stay alert and alive and not fall off it's perch.

> One can probably find videos on Youtube if you want to compare the health

> of your bird to ones that are infected. But if the tongue is fine, and the

> feeder is clean, you can't really do much more.

>

>  NB. It may not be your feeder that has black mold in the ports - it may

> be a neighbor's. Mold on feeders is a problem here especially in fall,

> winter and spring, when the conditions are damp, but there is enough warmth

> around to encourage microbial growth. When I have seen moldy feeder ports,

> it's usually when folks aren’t paying as much attention to the health of

> the birds/cleaning the feeders), but afaict the mold is less likely in high

> heat of summer as it’s less damp then. Instead, in summer - the fluid will

> go 'off' in high heat with fast microbial growth instead and the fluid

> going cloudy. I’ve never tested what grows in summer hummer fluid but it’s

> probably a variety of things - bacteria and fungi.

>

> Anyway, my bet is that your female is nesting. They will nest as early as

> February here.

> Happy birding!

>

> Nadine Drisseq

> (Molecular biologist, now retired)

>

> On Sun, Feb 11, 2024 at 7:04 PM Shelf Life Community Story Project <

> info at shelflifestories.com> wrote:

>

>> There is a female Anna’s sitting on one of my feeders, in the dark,

>> guzzling nectar. It’s not very cold out. She’s not torpid. The nectar is

>> fresh yesterday. It’s been dark out for at least an hour, and she is just

>> really hungry, sitting on the feeder for long periods of time, guzzling.

>> I’ve never seen this before. Is this normal behavior? Should I keep an eye

>> on her? Perhaps she’s getting ready to lay eggs and needs extra calories?

>>

>> Thanks in advance for any insights.

>>

>> Jill

>> _______________________________________________

>> Tweeters mailing list

>> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

>> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>>

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20240212/a7186e85/attachment.html>