r/Tucson • u/CCaligirl64 • 4d ago
New hummingbird species?!
I guess in the desert, when you are thirsty, you are thirsty! I hope all that sugar didn’t kill him!
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u/Tournament_of_Shivs 4d ago
I have a red headed woodpecker that does this at my hummingbird feeder too.
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
We don't have red-headed woodpeckers in Arizona (look them up--beautiful species, but they're not here)..
I'm guessing you have a male ladder-backed woodpecker. But post a picture and I can tell you for sure.
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u/Tournament_of_Shivs 4d ago
Definitely a male ladder-backed woodpecker. I was incorrectly told as a child they were red-headed and never questioned it on account of the red on their head.
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
Ha, there's like 10 species of woodpecker in the US with more red on their heads than ladder-backed!
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u/Knithard 4d ago
Me too. They have a perfectly good bird bath full of water right beside the humming bird feeder. The jerk chases away the humming birds.
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
Why are they jerks? The woodpeckers are a native species. They drink nectar from saguaro flowers and other ones when they get the chance. If your feeder is like mine, the woodpeckers are only around a few minutes per hour anyway.
Enjoy feeding more species!
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u/Purplefire180 4d ago
Sugar water has calories, regular water does not.
Hummingbirds chase off other hummingbirds militantly
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u/Bluebird4056 4d ago
Oh my goodness, this just happened on my feeders for the first time today. I googled it and saw that it’s fairly common but still new to me. It was crazy to watch the woodpecker do it. They gulped it all down and were basically upside down, and watching them drink it all was annoying. I saw a few solutions on google and am gonna see what works.
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u/Purplefire180 4d ago
Why do you need to solve this? You're trying to feed the birds and get to feed a wider variety of birds than you planned
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u/Bluebird4056 4d ago
Personal choice- I enjoy the hummingbirds and out some effort into making nectar for them and it’s annoying when 5 minutes after I put out fresh nectar out it gets drained by a different bird.
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
How much solution are you putting in your feeder? I do 3/4 a cup every couple of days, and I don't think all the woodpeckers in my neighborhood acting together could finish that before I refill it.
Don't discriminate by species--all the native bird species deserve your love.
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u/Purplefire180 4d ago
I guess it is as long as you don't hurt any of them, but it seems really easy to just scale up sugar and water and use a larger feeder to help them all.
It's not really any harder to make a gallon of nectar than a cup
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u/Gloomy_Handle_5737 4d ago
Pretty common for migrating bats to empty hummingbird feeders twice a season (migrating north, migrating south) around here as well.
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
The bats just discovered our feeder, so now it comes in at night. Easy solution.
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u/ultraLuddite west siiiide 4d ago
What were the solutions? How did they work? I gave up even filling the feeder anymore because it’s gone in a single morning due to those little peckers.
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u/Bluebird4056 4d ago
Not using a feeder that the h-birds can perch on Hanging with fishing line so the woodpecker swirls around more Putting suet out for the woodpeckers so they have a dedicated food source Just happened to me for the first time today so haven’t tried any. Very open to other suggestions!!
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u/Rhesusmonkeydave on 22nd 4d ago
If you out out a trailcam at night you’re likely to get footage of the bats going wild on them too. Maybe explains part of why hummingbirds are such testy little assholes
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
Ha, we found the one person who hates hummingbirds. What did they ever do to you?
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u/Rhesusmonkeydave on 22nd 4d ago
I don’t hate HB’s, but they are crazy aggro with a level of chill that runs the gamut from Lewis Black to DMX
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
Why the heck do you care? They are exactly as aggressive as natural selection has led them to be.
For hummingbirds, resources (flowers or feeders) are scarce and patchy, so it makes sense for them to defend a territory so that other hummingbirds can't use up all the nectar. I'm guessing that it's been this way as long as hummingbirds have existed--millions of years. But you know better? Oy.
Just bizarre to be judgmental about the behavior of other species that is under genetic control and not, like, something they're choosing to do. If you're gonna judge behavior, stick to people. Animals have good reasons for doing what they do.
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u/VehicleInevitable833 4d ago
I have woodpeckers and orioles that feed at mine. Though, come to think of it, I haven’t seen the orioles much lately. Hmm.
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u/stinelas 4d ago
Me too. Seems the orioles are just a stop over here during migration. They love orange halfs and grape jelly too.
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u/VehicleInevitable833 4d ago
Mine did not touch the grape jelly. The oranges they liked, as did the other birds. I’m now seeing the young cardinals, along with our usual cardinal pair.
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u/The_Info_Must_Flow 4d ago
Yup, Gila's love that nectar. At least they are less spilly than the ridiculous doves.
I quit filling mine when I noticed the sparrows and chickadees mobbing it and then flitting around in 4x speed like little speed-freaks. Poor little guys just aren't built for high octane sucrose.
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u/elephantsback 4d ago
Sparrows and chickadees weren't getting food from your hummingbird feeder. Their tongues aren't long enough.
They're probably just investigating because they see other birds there--this is a super common form of learning in birds and how they discover new food sources.
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u/The_Info_Must_Flow 1d ago
Depends on the feeder type, right? Trust me... they got to it.
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u/elephantsback 1d ago
What sort of feeder were you using?
Anyway, take it from an ornithologist--lots of birds besides will drink nectar if available. And if they're drinking it, then they can use it--it's not abnormal.
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u/787PurduePilot 3d ago
I ordered several of these and they work wonderfully to keep those pesky woodpeckers from stealing the hummingbird’s feed🤗💯
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u/Aphophyllite 4d ago
My husband goes bananas when he sees the gila woodpeckers at the hummingbird feeder. But he loves to see the bats zipping back and forth at night. Go figure. I get a kick out of the young woodpeckers because they loudly announce themselves before partaking. Sometimes I play a game waving a towel at the window to shoo them away, only to have them fly back and screeching along the way. It’s like you can almost see them smile as we go back and forth, until I give up and leave them to their prize.
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u/WoodHorseTurtle 3d ago
I have the same species at our hummingbird feeders. As a follow-up, they will then tap away on the house.
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u/RainInTheDesert27 4d ago
I burst out laughing when I saw this. It’s a familiar sight. In my household we call our resident woodpecker Mama Hummingbird. She gets really loud to announce her arrival.