In the morning thread, I mentioned an epic three-way battle between three male Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds for control of a feeder we recently placed off the front porch. I know it was three males only because at one point two were on opposite sides of the feeder, and a third zoomed in to chase them off.
Here’s a stealth claimant for that same feeder: a female hummingbird who’s been zooming in when the boys are elsewhere.
Check out this thirsty girl! #hummingbirds
— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) April 8, 2025 at 4:38 PM
In the clip, she looks up frequently to make sure no rivals or other dangers from above are approaching. She’s smart to do so; if you listen with the sound up, you can hear the record-scratch vocalizations of nearby males fighting over other feeders or flowering plants.
It’s close enough to 5 PM where I am, so I think I’ll head outside with a glass of red zin, station myself near the firepit and stake out the feeder from that angle. I don’t know anything about birds, but I suspect this feisty lady may have a nest nearby, so I’ll watch her comings and goings to see if I can figure out where it is.
The world is too awful to contemplate right now, if you’re looking at news and politics. But nature is hanging in there so far. We seem to have a bumper crop of hummingbirds this season, judging by the volume at which they’re consuming the nectar.
Could be the flood last fall wiped out some of the blooming plants they used to count on. Bill has planted new flowering bushes in our yard and revived some of the flood-damaged ones, but maybe that’s why they’re all over the feeders this year.
Anyhoo, y’all feel free to discuss anything you want in this thread, including The Horrors. Or birds, if you’d like.
Open thread.
PaulWartenberg – Hands Off! – Lakeland FL (Open Thread)
Trivia Man
Hummingbirds know how to cope – carry water, chop wood
japa21
Birds are much more enjoyable to watch. The biggest thing Mrs Japa and I miss from when we lived in our house is sitting on the patio in the morning and evening watching the birds feed themselves at the feeders .
Miss Bianca
I’ve observed that same phenomenon countless times at my feeders – the boys are all swooping and diving and screeing, ‘I WILL END YOU’ at each other, and meanwhile the girls, the ostensible object of such displays, are going, ‘I’ll just be over here slurping up all the sweet stuff, you all go right ahead with what you’re doing.’ LOL!
drdavechemist
I have what I believe is a mourning dove that has made a nest on top of the wreath on our front door. I haven’t figured out if there are eggs yet, but if there are and nothing disturbs her, I will need to go out the side door and around the house to pick up the mail and other deliveries until the little ones have hatched and fledged. First world nature lover problem…
Bostondreams
For someone who claims not to know anything about birds, you always take and share such amazing photos and videos of those birds. Thank you for that.
Jeffro
Mrs Fro and I are eagerly awaiting the start of hummingbird-watching season here in central VA…I think we have another week or two at most.
They’re fun! It makes me laugh when they finally tire each other out and they all sit there sipping nervously, like little feathered gunfighters settling in at the bar of the world’s most limited-selection saloon. =)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
At least we can all have a good laugh at the crypto idiots
raven
Congratulations Betty!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Back in Central Misery, the hummers are still 2 weeks away from arriving en masse.
There’s nothing more entertaining and mesmerizing that watching them fight over feeders although when they arrive, they’re all so starving, they get past that for a little while.
Jeffro
btw the news broke in multiple outlets yesterday that (supposedly) scientists have re-created or ‘de-extincted’ the dreaded dire wolf…only to go with the most cliched names possible:
exciting stuff, just not sure if ‘good’ exciting or ‘bad’ exciting
dexwood
Thanks for the reminder earlier today to get my feeders up. Hummers usually show up here around April 8th. So much fun to watch. At the height of the season they’ll feed while the feeder is still in my hand before I get it hung.
Princess
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Crypto is backed by nothing and its value seems to be very sensitive to the value of the dollar. It’s useful for shady or secret transactions, I guess, but it doesn’t seem to be a hedge.
japa21
@Miss Bianca: Females can be just as territorial as males. We had a feeder off our patio and a female viewed it as her personal stash. She would perch in a tree about 15 feet away and when another female came to feed she would swoop out and go after it. Sometimes the chase would come close enough for us to hear the hum of their wings.
Trollhattan
We have a year-round population of Anna’s that, season depending, recreate the Battle of Britain. In summer, black-chinned show, perhaps others, adding to the chaos mix.
My foothills relatives get far more in numbers and varieties than here in the Big City.
I know they like to nest in orange trees, don’t know about other possible favorites. The nests are unbelievably tiny construction marvels to those lucky enough to spot one.
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffro: It’s not exciting at all, it’s wildly overhyped nonsense. But the usual media accounts will not give you the information you need to realize that.
Jay
@Trollhattan:
when we lived at the place, the preferred nesting locations were in side the tangles of wild rose bushes,………..
and on top of a solar powered motion detector light under the porch roof.
Miki
I took my feeders down several years ago because they attracted voles and mice, even though I used sunflower hearts, thistle, and similar “clean” feed, and kept the ground clear as possible of seed stuffs. The voles did a number under my garage floor, as well as in my yard and my neighbor’s yard. The mice figured out how to get in my 100 yr old house (imagine that!), and made tons of babies that required a professional exterminator to rid me of them.
I had the feeders for over 10 years but the damned varmints finally won.
Hummers, otoh, I think I could do them without succumbing to pests.
bbleh
Speaking of birds, I REALLY enjoyed “The Residence” on Netflix. Very clever writing, fast-paced, not Heavy, and great characters! Way big fun!
NeenerNeener
Last year bluebirds made a nest in the newspaper slot of my metal mailbox. Of course, the temperatures soared and the eggs baked instead of hatching so I got a bluebird house kit and my brother put it together. The bluebirds ignored it all summer long. This year we moved the house from my side yard to the flower bed in front of my house. The bluebirds are still ignoring it but a pair of tree swallows are at least using it as a perch to watch the rest of the neighborhood wake up in the morning. I can’t tell if they’re actually using it as a nesting box yet, but if they do I should see little birbs coming out of it at some point.
I’ve got seed feeders hanging on the shepherd’s hook on my back deck that will need to come down soon so I can put the hummingbird feeders up. I got one of those nifty bird feeders with a camera in it for Christmas and that’s mounted below and between the two shepherd’s hooks. I hope that won’t keep the hummers away.
I checked the dried meal worm bags I’ve got on hand for the bluebirds, and they all come from China. If St. Upid’s tariffs double the cost of bird food, wild birds will also be victims of T***p.
Jay
@Jeffro:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9ejy3gdvo
Gin & Tonic
This morning the orthopedist told me to keep as little weight on my right leg as possible for the next six weeks. So they issued me crutches, which I’ve been on before, but really aren’t much fun. Workouts are to be core and upper body only, no leg work. Looks like it’ll be a while before I’m on the bike.
JetsamPool
Many years ago I took a trip to Arches National Park in late winter/early spring. As I was hiking along one of the trails, I paused to rest on a boulder and looked down to see a hummingbird sitting in her nest only a few feet away from me. The nest was exceedingly tiny.
Miki
@bbleh: Me, too! So good! Perfect psychic palate cleanser.
Gin & Tonic
@Miki: Our local conservation commission recommends taking bird feeders down at the end of March. Doubly so this year, since there have been black bear sightings in my area.
Jay
@Miki:
Make sure that your feeders have ant traps built in.
Oh and if it’s in a used space, keep in mind they poop out sugar water as they feed. We had rubber mats down under the feeders so we could hose them off.
Steve LaBonne
@Jay: And it’s looking increasingly as though dire wolves and gray wolves are only distantly related, which would invalidate the approach of this company even at the most basic conceptual level.
Uncle Cosmo
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Craptocurrency. Crapto ca-ca-currency. “Store of value,” hah, more like spore of worthlessness.
Jay
@Steve LaBonne:
Yup, it’s like the woolly mammoth mice, cute, neat a gene could be inserted and expressed, but size wise, not a meal for cavemen or direwolves.
TheOtherHank
Slightly de-anonymizing myself, but here’s a video I made a few years ago where I took slo-mo videos of the Anna’s hummingbirds zooming around my feeder: Slo-mo hummingbirds
There’s three more, some with an even higher frame rate
JoyceH
Permission to discuss the Horrors? Okay. Yesterday I had the TV on in the living room while I was doing stuff in the kitchen so I became an unwilling listener to some Trumpish blather. And he said something yet again that he’s said over and over. And I’ve decided we should seek details.
So I would like some brave reporter to ask the White House press secretary for some details and ideally some evidence of precisely when and HOW neighboring countries emptied their prisons and insane asylums into our country.
How exactly would that work? Did they drive padlocked vans to the border, take out the lunatics and remove their straitjackets and point them toward the border? Did they do a night airdrop of criminals, like paratroopers? Honestly, I would think getting all your country’s criminals and lunatics into a foreign country would be extraordinarily difficult but Trump has said it so often he must have some details, right?
TheOtherHank
@Steve LaBonne: When my son mentioned this to me yesterday I asked if the “dire wolves” had already gotten stuck in a tar pit.
If you haven’t been to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, it’s worth the trip. One of the more impressive displays is the wall of dire wolf skulls. It seems they wanted to dine on the various other animals that had gotten stuck, and then got stuck themselves. So many skulls
Harrison Wesley
@JoyceH: My understanding is he heard about people seeking asylum and his few functioning brain cells converted this to people escaping from asylums.
Jay
@Harrison Wesley:
And then got Hannibal Lecter living rent free in his rotted out brain.
Scout211
@Jeffro: I guess you missed TaMara’s post last night:
Activate the Dire Wolves!
Martin
@Princess: The main problem with crypto is that unlike every thing we call an investment, it produces no work. And for that reason alone it should be illegal.
We seem to have seriously lost the plot of the point of the government issuing currency, of investment, and so on.
Martin
@TheOtherHank: Part of why it’s worth the trip is that it’s right downtown (essentially Wilshire/Fairfax). So you start out with ‘what the fuck is this doing here’ vibes.
And yeah, it’s great.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
“We”? Which “we”?
Of course, losing the plot point is the part of any scam. Part of me wishes a massive crash that has catastrophic consequences if only it would rid our world of crypto.
An overreaction, sure, but the sheer lunacy of crypto and those that promote it is beyond depressing.
Scout211
This is a little bit of good news.
But we know who ordered them and for what reason.
Jay
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8e4q2p9po
Booger
@Jeffro: Ours arrived on Saturday. I think we’re a little bit north of you.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Bastards
Good thing ski season is over. Or was it skiing that caused the problem?
JoyceH
@Harrison Wesley: Oh, I know it’s total bullshit, but I’d love to watch staff try to explain it. Make them work for their paycheck.
Elizabelle
@TheOtherHank: Yes! The wall of dire wolf skulls, and the sabre tooth tiger.
Poor things. We have dinner time easier than they did.
Suzanne
I am not really a TV watcher, but I have gotten three episodes into The Residence on Netflix. Tons of fun. Main character is a birder!
I saw this piece, and I don’t know how I feel about it: Bluesky Can’t Take A Joke. (Might have to archive.ph it.)
Spawn is sick and I am exhausted.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: I hate crutches. I hope you can get rid of them soon.
Jay
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/08/trump-supreme-court-ruling
Steve in the ATL
@raven: I am very, very disappointed with Houston today.
Jim Appleton
@Jeffro: interesting bit on BBC just now about this.
A Colossal rep bubbled with excitement about recreating “functional” traits, and a Brit conservation scientist called b.s. — “This is like fitting a few chimpanzee genes into a fertilized human egg and calling it a Neanderthal. These are big white dogs.”
NotMax
FYI.
Nukular Biskits
Good evenin’, y’all.
Betty C, keep rubbing it in. I’ve already told you I’m jealous and you keep bragging about your hummers!
Steve in the ATL
@Martin: arguably, it was there before DTLA
Trollhattan
The charm offensive continues, with the focus on offensive.
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits:
After dark already?
Jay
@NotMax:
So, the preparations are being made for the US to shift from the Dollar Reserve to the Crypto Reserve. Will Bankman-Fried be it’s 1st Chair?
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Skiing caused the issue. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
Martin
@Steve in the ATL: It’s just odd seeing a rare natural phenomenon being encroached upon to such a degree. There’s only 5 in the world, and 3 are in California.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Has it changed much in 2-3 decades?
I figure it hasn’t much but I lived on the west side for a few years and went to see it. It is worth the trip if you are anywhere in the surrounding area and have never seen it.
JoyceH
@Trollhattan: was Vance always like this? When he ran for Senator was he so blatantly hostile and offensive?
kindness
There are two hummingbird couples that live around my place year round. They let me know if the feeder gets low and I hop on it. I’ve only found old nests of theirs that have blown down during winter storms. I’m pretty sure they use the Bottlebrush and some of the cypress trees. Those are my best hidey holes for them as they are both really dense. Nothing is surprise attacking nests in there
Alas, no gators here.
Jay
@JoyceH:
Couchfucker ran as an NPR.
frosty
I prefer birds to the horrors. It’s been too wet and cold for weather-wimp me to get out much since we got back from Florida, but I’m signed up with the Baltimore Bird Club next week for an evening walk to look for (or listen for) rails, which should be fun. Especially since it doesn’t mean getting up at 0-Dawn-30 like the usual Bird Club walks.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
When I was much younger, I could never understand how hummingbirds could live just on sugar water (or flower nectar). Then I went to a birding festival and saw a wonderful documentary on hummingbirds which showed them catching and eating tiny flying insects. So they do get protein from somewhere!
We have a limited number of hummingbirds which winter over at our house, so we keep the feeder filled year round. Things are starting to heat up now in hummingbird world; I am starting to hear the mating calls and see the mating behavior (fly way up into the sky, then plummet down, making a sharp chirp as you do).
Betty Cracker
@Trollhattan: I saw an Anna’s in Oregon. One of my best birdwatching memories!
Betty Cracker
@JetsamPool: Wow. I love that!
Jim Appleton
@Betty Cracker: They overwinter here. Don’t know how, as it was not unusual up until about 1980 for it to get down to -15F in my part of the eastern Columbia River Gorge.
I keep a few Anna’s going with a flat feeder set on a heating pad in subfreezing weather.
frosty
@Suzanne: We just finished The Residence. Every bit of it was great, but I really enjoyed the detective picking up her binoculars and ignoring everyone.
Birding skills were a key part of the denouement which makes it even better!
I’d like to see another season with the lead but it couldn’t be in the White House and it would lose most of the other characters.
frosty
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): This is the documentary I saw. I want to see a “making of” video. How did they get all these shots??
Hummingbirds: Jewelled Messengers
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3216766/
Jay
@Jim Appleton:
Anna’s overwinter here as well. At first the theory was feeders, now the theory is non-native plantings.
MagdaInBlack
I see hummingbirds up here on the 3rd floor penthouse when Ruby the Giant Geranium blooms. They are attracted to, and disappointed by, the BIG red flowers. If I am sitting out there when they come to check, I get a hummingbird scan too, about 5 inches from my face, like a little scanning drone. It’s very cool
( did I abuse the comma too much?)
Suzanne
@frosty: I’m totally enjoying it. It’s exactly what I need right now.
Plus, the production values are great. I always love looking at the details like the furniture and the lighting.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro:
Well said! :-)
Betty Cracker
@MagdaInBlack: No. No, you did not. (Abuse the comma, I mean.)
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker: Whew =-)
artem1s
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
and influencers. equally a waste of resources and oxygen.
artem1s
@JoyceH: yes. he was the most odious choice in the room full of odious couch fuckers that the Geauga County GOP could find. Josh Mandel was the hands down most odious front runner at first – even the Fundies flocked to him despite coming from a liberal, Jewish family. But JV was so completely odious that he proved the exception to the rule that Orangemandius kills everything he touches and endorses. The Fundies dropped Josh like a lead weight as soon as Theil coughed up a million for the Convicted Felon’s endorsement. Of course it didn’t help that Ryan couldn’t be bothered to court the African American vote in NEOH. He thought he could ride into the Senate with the Youngstown White Cletus Diner vote.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin:
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The rot goes beyond crypto, but macroeconomic orthodoxy itself. People have forgotten that owning government issued currency is owning claims on physical goods produced or tangible services rendered, they are not the end themselves. It is very convenient to quantify things in nominal currency terms to as shorthand for analyses, people mistake maximizing those terms to be the purpose for public policy, as opposed to maximizing material outcomes.
Nominal GDP is only meaning if currency can be exchanged for physical goods & tangible services at relatively consistent exchange rate, nominal GDP in USD terms for non-US countries is only meaningful if exchange rates are relatively stable. US consumer demand in nominal USD is not that meaningful, the qty of goods & services consumed (automobiles, computers, apparels, food, travel, education, healthcare, etc.) is what really matters. Cash transfer payments as part of social welfare is not that meaningful, what qty of physical goods & tangible services the recipients can is what really matters. The nominal USD investment into manufacturing is not that meaningful, the number of factories built & equipment, & the qty of goods produced from those factories are what really matters. The nominal USD investment in infrastructure/public goods is not that meaningful, the qty/quality of infrastructure/public goods built is what really matters. The amount of military to Ukraine in nominal USD (or nominal Euro) terms is meaningless, the qty of weapons & munitions is what really matters. The US defense budget in nominal USD is not that meaningful for measuring military power, the combat power available & can be sustained in warfare is what really matters.
The over-financialization of the US (& to a lesser extent Western) economy has made analysts & policymakers lose touch w/ material outcomes, & instead overwhelmingly conceive in monetary terms. Analyzing in nominal (or real) currency terms can be useful as shorthand, but only if the analysts & policymakers are very vigilant abut the limitations of this approach.
A similar dynamic is at play in macro-economics, where orthodox macroeconomists’ analytical frameworks are dominated by GDP accounting identities w/ specific technical meaning (“investment”, “demand”, “savings”, “income”, & variations thereof, etc.), & conflating them w/ the popular understanding of these terms in their analyses, & are increasingly divorced from material realities & outcomes.
frosty
@Suzanne: You’ll enjoy what the Social Secretary wants to do with the furniture then, if you haven’t gotten there yet.
The behind-the-scenes scenes with the staff who make the White House work was what I liked best. “This is our house. These people just live here for four years.”
Greg Smith
I’m afraid the bird in that video is a male RTH. A giveaway for identifying males is the white ring around the neck. The females will be much lighter down the entire underside, from the throat all the way to the legs. The males will have the dark head, including the throat, and then the dark body including the chest and belly, separated by the white ring you can see in the above video. Later in the season the birds with light underside might be first year males, but for now they are definitely females.
Elie
@Betty Cracker:
Best regards to you Betty. I live in Wa state and we celebrate Rufous and Anna’s. Love your pic of your hummingbird up top. I don’t think it’s a girl and may not be a Ruby throat but it looks like a male black chinned hummingbird. These birds are redefining their territories all over due to global warming. I just love them.
Wishing you only the best
Betty Cracker
@Greg Smith: & @Elie: Y’all are right — he’s a dude! Thanks for setting me straight.