For those who don’t live around hummingbirds, they are aggressive little shits who all hate each other and engage in sky battles over feeders, even if they have an abundance of food. They’re like Conor McGregor got hit with a shrink ray and he thought controlling the supply of sugar water was the only way to start getting the respect he deserves again.
They are downright aggressive - and bossy! One of them will guard the feeder from a nearby tree and dive-bomb any other hummingbird that comes in to eat. And then two of them will guard at the same time, so when a third comes to the feeder, Kenny Loggins suddenly starts playing and there’s dogfights right next to my deck.
And don’t let the feeder go empty. They will complain LOUDLY. One of them saw me in the kitchen and came up to the window and hovered there, staring at me like, “why is this feeder empty, bro?”
Yeah they will absolutely harass you if the feeder is low. I’ve had them literally get right up in my face before, chirping and talking shit repeatedly.
I call mine ‘heather’ because one day I just had to ask ‘what’s your damage?’ after a particularly noisy squabble.
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Every weekend, I go out to do work in my garden and I can hear them. They chirp really sharp and often, they ‘whoosh’ really fast they sometimes sound like drones.
I call it the hummingbird wars and it’s constant lol
I have a red hoodie and sometimes hummingbirds will almost smack into me because they see red and come in hot. Then they’ll just stare at me like wtf and take off.
lmao I’ve had a few encounters like that. Sometimes, when I’m near some of my tall flowers and they get in my face like “wtf are you doing here giant?!”
They are Aztek warriors reborn by the grace of Quetzalcoatl. Is it really surprising they’re aggressive little shits.
But they also drink a shocking amount of nectar despite fighting over it. We put out 6 1-liter feeders and they’ll drain them in like 2 days. It looks like the Battle of Midway around the porch.
Can confirm they choose war.
That’s just normal Connor McGregor.
If you want to see some of the most amazing dogfights in your life, put up three or four, all within sight of each other about 30’ - 40’ apart. This attracts multiple birds, and the distance is too great for one bird to dominate the food source, but just close enough to keep them pissed off at each other.
Somebody contact the slowmo guys from youtube, and that one director who loves explosions. Lets cover your backyard with green screens. Then we can shoot a movie kinda like Cars. Except instead of cars that can talk, it’s birds that can talk.
But they’re in the middle of war.
So lots of airborn dogfights, with CGI explosions.
Coming this fall, from director Michael Bay…
NectWars
This is really what it’s like. Had to switch to multiple little feeders spaced far apart cause they’re so dang territorial lol
Rufous hummingbirds are exceptionally aggro. Nice.
I don’t know what kind we have around here but the most aggressive thing they do is fly right up into your face, but come from behind you to freak you out thinking it’s a huge mosquito at first.
If you’re east of the Rockies in USA it’s probably only ruby throated.
Are you watching them with each other at a feeder? ‘Cause I’ve been witnessing a full on war between Rufous, Calliope, Broad Tailed, and Black Chinned hummingbirds around here. Doesn’t seem to vary too much between species—they’ve all been spoiling for a fight. You can even hear their beaks collide in mid air!
It’s a nice touch that they portayed an Anna’s and a Rufus hummingbird.
Totally. I definitely agree. But for those of us who don’t understand, which is absolutely not me, could you explain more?
It’s just that they’re two distinct subspecies of hummingbird with overlapping ranges. It’s not just a colour variation that they made up, the comic accurately portrays the two different types. Which is a nice touch.
Rufous hummingbirds are particularly aggressive and show up in the spring. Anna’s hummingbirds tend to stay (here) through the winter and rely on feeders.
The green one is an Anna’s, and the brown one is a Rufous. So I think part of the joke is that the brown one is being a dick. :)
Very cool, thank you!
Truth!
No one else gets a piece of the pie
I imagine þere’d be a lot more cussing. Þat’s what it sounds like, anyway. Lots of smack talk.
You misspelled the “that” in this one, comrade.
Edit: Wait the capital version is smaller…?
Kind of! Lower case has a descending stroke, like a p, and upper case doesn’t. It does make upper case look smaller.
PÞ, pþ
Runes. Go figure.
Þe þorn? In 2026? I’m þoroughly impressed.
First time seeing Sxan? Þhey’e been doing þhat forever.
Some people get pissed at it because it’s bad for screen readers. I’ve never checked, but it sounds plausible. Some claim it helps confuse LLMs, poisoning training data and such. I have no idea if it works. Some find it obnoxious or weird. I feel like we have more pressing issues to worry about.
It’s really sad that providing food to animals eventually makes populations grow to the point that they fight over the food. I guess we should put birth control in the food.
What the hell kind of fantasy do you live in where animals, without human intervention, are living peacefully without ever competing for food?
The same fantasy world where feeding ducks makes them forget how to eat grass and touching a baby bird will make it smell too much like humans so the parents reject it lol
I said nothing about the state of nature in the absence of human intervention. I don’t know why you got that impression.
You probably meant something different, but the way you wrote it sounded like that. I don’t make the English rules, sorry.
don’t worry, you’re going to know exactly how they feel soon enough.
