<div dir="ltr">
<p class="gmail-p1" style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">Jill, I've got several theories for you. It could be a combo of two or more of them too.<br><br>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. <br><br>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.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> <br><br>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.)</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p2" style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:15px"><br></p>
<p class="gmail-p1" style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">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 - <b>and in the ports especially</b> - or in the liquid itself.<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> The infection</span> 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.<br>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. <br><br> 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.<br><br>Anyway, my bet is that your female is nesting. They will nest as early as February here. <br>Happy birding!</p>
<p class="gmail-p1" style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">Nadine Drisseq<br>(Molecular biologist, now retired)</p></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Feb 11, 2024 at 7:04 PM Shelf Life Community Story Project <<a href="mailto:info@shelflifestories.com">info@shelflifestories.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">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?<br>
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Thanks in advance for any insights. <br>
<br>
Jill<br>
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