Birds in the Garden, Hummingbirds are back

My absolute favorite milestone of the spring is the return of the hummingbirds. Hooray, they're here!  Our hummer community is not as big as last year,yet,  but hopefully it will build.

As far as I can tell, we have three or four hummers. I can identify two different females and two different males, but I haven't seen all of them around in the last few days. I moved a feeder to its last year location, and I think that took some of them to a spot where I can not observe them as easily. I am tempted to remove it from that spot, because it is no fun!

I added a feeder on the kitchen window, it hangs from suction cups, and they use it. They aren't really too comfortable there though, they leave as soon as they see me move in the room. The optimums of all of these choices will develop over the next couple of weeks, and hopefully we will get the droves of hummers we had last year. What fun that was....thirty or forty at a time! Of course that was when my flowers were in full bloom and that surely effected how many hummers came to feed. Cultivating hummingbirds is way more than just putting out feeders in the right locations. Attracting hummers requires dedication. If you are interested in doing so, I have some postings from last year that outline how to do that. Please check them out for more info. If you would like to see a dogfight outside my kitchen window, click the link
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We have a growing population of birds in the garden. The Brown Thrasher has moved in to patrol the yard. Much to my pleasure he runs off the Red Wing Blackbirds that take over the bird feeders. He will a actually walk up to them peck at them and run them off across the grass until they leave. The birdbaths have been quite the busy spot. You can see in the photo that the Brown Thrasher enjoyed a spa treatment for himself. This bird bath has proved to be a very popular attraction in the garden. I've seen Chickadees, Cardinals, Mockingbirds, Brown Thrashers and Red Wing Blackbirds bathing in it, and American Goldfinches, House Finches, Sparrows, and Blue Jays drinking from it. I put it where I can see it from the kitchen window and it has given me many minutes of unexpected delight glancing out the window to see who shows up to use it. The gift of a small joy!

Brown Thrasher taking a bath