Distractions (Post # 118)

Hummer alert! Get out the feeder and charge it up!

You have to start by positioning the feeder in the
hummer's flight path well inside the building and close 
to the ceiling. Eventually they find it and land for a 
drink.

Every summer the hummingbirds migrate through the mountains of New Mexico on their way to Central America, as they have done for millennia. Like most people, I admire their amazing navigational and aerobatic abilities . . . and ask myself if they are so smart and capable, why do they want to fly into my garage, and why can't they find their way out through the same gigantic overhead door that they flew in through? My overhead door is open a lot during the months when the hummers are here, so I get a lot of unwanted visitors.

They tend to fly around close to the ceiling 12 ft off the floor, making them virtually uncatchable. I spent many frustrating hours chasing them around with a butterfly net, trying to catch and release them safely outside. Then one day I noticed that they all tend to roost on a red electrical cord reel attached to the ceiling. I knew that they are supposed to be attracted to certain colors and that is why hummingbird feeders are usually red, so I nicked a red feeder from my wife's collection along with the formula for making fake "nectar". 

Then you have to start moving it toward the overhead
door in stages until you can hang it on the door itself.
They will go directly to it, drink, and fly out!

The next time a hummer flew in, instead of chasing it around I filled the feeder and confidently hung it in the middle of the overhead door opening. Didn't work. The hummer circled the ceiling for an hour, oblivious to the feeder in the middle of the biggest opening in the building . . . until I moved the feeder inside and near the ceiling. Within minutes the hummer found it and lit. This was all it took to make the connection in the hummer's tiny brain so when I moved the feeder to the overhead door he followed, lit again, drank, and flew out! I've used this trick dozens of time since then and it always works.