Well, blogging being the inbred activity that it is, I’m starting off by tackling the well-intentioned comments of another blogger. A post to the Hummingbird Forum on Network 54 alerted me to a post at Robin’s Nesting Place in which “Robin” blames feeders for an attack on a weakened hummingbird by a healthy territorial one. She wrote:
It isn’t worth it for me to have a feeder if it causes the hummingbirds to be so violent with each other…
Using feeders is a wholly personal choice, but I hate to see someone become upset – and upset others – over a misinterpretation. In a follow-up post, Robin described hummingbirds “fighting to kill” as “unexpected behavior”:
I thought they were just cute little interesting birds and had this sweet image of them in my mind. It was a shock for me to witness such unexpected violence.
As my husband says, people who describe hummingbirds as “cute”and “sweet” haven’t been paying attention. But a lot of people share this misconception, and shedding it is a significant step in Robin’s growth as a gardener and observer of nature. Unfortunately, her horror has pushed her a bit far the opposite direction, leading her to believe that hummingbirds routinely fight to the death over feeders. As proof, she linked to another gardener’s blog with a photo of a hummingbird at a feeder, supposedly bloodied from a fight.
Hummingbirds are definitely more Taz than Tinker Bell, but (thankfully) they just don’t have what it takes to commit trochilicide. Even if that wicked-looking bill wasn’t too fragile and sensitive to be an effective weapon, its wielder couldn’t muster enough force to fatally pierce the body of another bird without risking its own life. Even the most vicious fight seldom does more than dislodge a few feathers. That photo in the other blog? A juvenile male Ruby-throated acquiring his red gorget feathers, not a bloody female. I’ve watched tens of thousands of hummingbirds feeding and fighting and never, ever seen a bloody one.
The fact is that a healthy hummingbird will either defend itself or flee before a more aggressive individual gets the chance to do any significant damage. Only birds weakened by hunger, disease, or injuries (from encounters with cats, windows, cars, and power lines, for example) are vulnerable to injury and, in rare instances, death from other hummingbirds, but these disadvantaged birds are far more at risk from cats, larger birds, and other predators. A starving, sick, or injured hummingbird is going to gravitate toward the easiest and most reliable energy source – a feeder – which makes one-sided battles such as the one Robin witnessed more likely to be observed at feeders. But it’s not the feeders’ fault, and their accessibility may mean the difference between life and death for those disadvantaged birds – a quick energy boost that gives them the strength to fight back or flee.
If feeders made hummingbirds fight to the death, imagine the carnage at our famous hummingbird feeding stations here in Arizona, some of which have dozens of feeders and host literally thousands of hummingbirds per day in migration. With one of our most combative hummingbirds, the Blue-throated, being three to four times the size of most of its rivals, the ground under the feeders would be littered with corpses. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen, despite frequent savage battles, or these feeding stations would have been closed years ago.
The implication in Robin’s original post, clarified in the comments that followed, was that hummingbirds don’t fight over flowers. Ha! If hummingbirds aren’t fighting over her flowers, she needs to plant better flowers. The richer the nectar source, the more it’s worth fighting over, so I’m guessing that Robin’s garden doesn’t include a really spectacular nectar producer. My own garden is mostly hummingbird flowers, but neither my “tame” flowers nor my feeders can compete with the wild agaves that grow nearby. Even though the numbers of migrants have been increasingly daily, our feeders have been virtually abandoned for the last couple of weeks (except following heavy rains). Instead, the birds are jousting and bickering with each other over the agave flowers.
So what can a sensitive, peace-loving soul do to foster détente in the feeder wars? Try adding more feeders and moving them further apart, preferably out of sight of one another. This won’t keep them from fighting, but it’ll give more birds a chance to feed undisturbed.
I was just idly googling to see if anyone else has used the word “trochilicide” and I found this blog entry. Certainly it’s rare, but there is one apparent example: http://www.carolinabirdclub.org/gallery/trochilicide.html
By: Kent Fiala on June 14, 2008
at 10:52 am
Actually, that’s more likely to be a case of a courtship display gone horribly wrong. Males of the “flame-throated” hummingbirds (a group of small species in which adult males have brilliantly iridescent throat patches) do spectacular aerial dive displays that function in both courtship and territoriality. Near the bottom of the arc or loop they’re pulling some serious Gs, and a collision with another bird at that point would almost certainly be mutually fatal. That’s what appears to have happened here, and there’s a photo of similar example in my field guide involving two male Broad-tailed Hummingbirds.
By: Sheri on August 27, 2008
at 11:07 am
My wife witnessed trochilicide today at one our feeders. A female rufous hummingbird was attacked by a pair of ruby throated hummingbirds. The hummer got caught in the feeder and was savaged by her attackers before my wife could intervene. We extricated the hummer from the feeder, gave her some nectar, and took her to Avian Rescue, where she expired.
By: Fred Thompson on September 1, 2008
at 5:06 pm
Thanks for the interesting (though sad) report, Fred. Your description of this unnatural event raises several questions, some of which I realize may be difficult to answer but all of which have a bearing on evaluating the role the bird’s attackers played in her demise:
How long was the bird trapped?
What was her condition before she was attacked?
What injuries did she receive in the attack? Did Avian Rescue examine the bird postmortem and document her injuries?
How exactly did she get caught in the feeder?
Is there a possibility her post-attack condition was complicated by human handling? I ask not in an accusatory way, but because I’ve seen even people experienced in handling small songbirds kill hummingbirds by holding them the wrong way.
As I noted in the original post, hummingbird-on-hummingbird violence seldom results on more than a few dislodged feathers unless the victim is weak, sick, or otherwise at a disadvantage. Ultimately, the dangerous design flaw in the feeder that prevented this bird from fleeing or fighting back is what killed her, and, had she been unable to extricate herself, it would have killed her even if she hadn’t been attacked. I would recommend tossing out that feeder and reporting this incident to the manufacturer so that they can address the design flaw and keep other hummingbirds from dying.
By: Sheri on September 2, 2008
at 2:27 pm
I have been feeding my little buddies for a long timeand I have never seen these duels to the death. There are some territorial spats but nothing as dramatic as what has been reported! The little guys have turned into tiny falcons. It must be the ozone !!!!!!!!!!!
By: Mike Link on March 21, 2009
at 10:55 am
We’ve just found two male bodies side by side near the feeder where earlier today they were doing constant battle, even though we have two feeders, one at a bit of a distance away from the other.
By: kathleen on May 20, 2009
at 12:10 pm
Is the feeder where you found the bodies near a window? Territorial behavior increases the risk of fatal window collisions by distracting both the chaser and chasee. To reduce the risk of fatal collisions, place the feeders either less than 2 feet or more than 30 feet from any window or glass door. (More window safety advice from FLAP.) To moderate the fighting, try moving the feeders far enough apart that it’s difficult for one bird to defend them both.
By: Sheri on May 20, 2009
at 5:19 pm
No, it’s not anywhere near a window. It’s hanging from a tree, not at all close to the house. But, I can see how that would happen.
By: kathleen on May 20, 2009
at 5:55 pm
[...] Hummingbirds don’t fight to the death, at least not intentionally. Dead hummingbirds can’t mate, and that’s the whole point of this kind of territoriality. [...]
By: Where do I begin? « Life, Birds, and Everything on August 17, 2009
at 2:37 am