>>:::<<
swift, charming beauty
feisty, relentless fireball
greedy hummingbird
>>:::<<
Today, in our yard, I captured this confrontation by two hummingbirds. These types of displays have been an all-day occurrence lately.
Last Friday, I noticed a new hummingbird to our feeders. It was a bright, glowing, copper/orange-colored hummingbird – so beautiful and eye-catching…until I realized how aggressively it was attacking the other hummingbirds. It fervently patrols its newly claimed territory and attacks other hummingbirds approaching the feeders with such intense speed, force and combativeness that it almost knocks me off-balance when it flies by me. They are much noisier than the others and are not afraid to confront and threaten other larger birds near the feeders, and even me (tail fanning is considered a threat display)!
After a google search, I believe what we have is a Rufous Hummingbird. The Rufous is the most aggressive of the hummingbirds, very defensive and are known to overtake territories already established by other birds. They will exhibit threat displays at other creatures, including humans. The other hummingbirds around our yard (black-chinned and broad-tailed) are territorial, which is typical, but not near as aggressive as the Rufous. Today, I noticed we now have at least three of these feisty Rufous’…but they certainly are pretty.
There is plenty of food to go around. We have several bird feeders and have planted many flowers that attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.
Yet how tragic to spend all day in confrontation. It would be nice if there could be more sharing, and less greed and fighting…by all species.
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This is for the letter “C” Story Challenge by Frizztext, to share a short story or reflection, even an aphorism using a word tagged with each letter of the alphabet.
Kim Klassen textures used are Mayzee and BeStill
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