In September 2006, Abigail Alfano of Pine, Louisiana, trained these ruby-throated hummingbirds to feed from her hands. These hummingbirds had been visiting her hummingbird feeder. I'm envious, but I don't have her patience.
My friend Jane knows I like hummingbirds so she emailed these photographs to me of a woman hand feeding ruby-throated hummingbirds. I immediately suspected photoshop! And not just because I didn’t believe hummingbirds would feed from a woman’s hand — hummingbirds are territorial and don’t “hang out together.” I guess they do when they’re migrating.
I immediately searched for a snopes.com article on hand-feeding hummingbirds, and amazingly it’s true. These hummingbirds live in Louisiana, where the motto is the Cajun term laisse le bon temps rouler, let the good times roll. Here, they hang out on their own Bourbon Street before they head onto southern Mexico for the winter.
Peaceable kingdom in Louisiana. Usually, ruby-throated hummingbirds will fight off rivals at the feeder, but here they are hovering together and also overlooking the fact that a human is literally handing out the treats, a cup of sugar water.
To see my less-impressive (although I was pretty proud of myself) photographs of the ruby-throated hummingbirds (one at a time) at my feeder go to Ruby-throated Hummingbird Moves into the Neighborhood and Ho, Hum, Another Hummingbird
6 Comments
August 30, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Wow, that’s either one powerful camera you’re using, or they left the shutter open for awhile…it’s very hard to capture hummingbirds like that, very Print-worthy pictures. The cropped version is really nice, as it focuses on the main area of the picture.
August 30, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Those are great photos. I wish I would have taken them and I wish I had that many hummingbirds in my yard! I did get some good photos of hummingbirds at my feeder in my two posts on hummingbirds — although they aren’t as great as these.
August 30, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Those hummingbirds may be on their own Bourbon Street, but I bet they’re sipping those oh-so-red Cosmos!
September 1, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Yeah I’ve heard it’s very hard to photograph them just right (unless you know a lot of tricks), because they’re so fast and if they manage to stay in stationary-flight just long enough for the camera to get a good shot, their wings may mess up the shot to the extraordinary speed they move at.
They truly are the Royalty of the Avian-World.
September 4, 2008 at 1:34 am
Thanks to Birds and Blooms Magazine, it is now known how she was able to accomplish this amazing task. The five steps that follow were told to the magazine by Abigail Alfano, but I have put them in my own words.
1.The hummingbirds must become used to your yard and the best way to achieve this is to offer them multiple sugar-water feeders.
2.As the number of hummingbirds visiting your feeders increases, you must start spending time outside in order to get the birds used to your presence. This will take some time and in the beginning presence may drive the birds away. You must be patient and persistent. Eventually, the birds will come back.
3.Once the birds are used to your presence there, you can hold a sugar-water feeder in your hand. Over time, the birds should eventually begin feeding from the feeder you are holding.
4.On a day where you have a great deal of hummingbirds visiting your feeders, you will want to remove all but one of your hummingbird feeders. Next, you will want to place a small container filled with sugar-water in the palm of your hand. For example, when Abigail did this she used an old milk jug lid.
5.Now comes the hard part, you must sit outside and wait. This takes time and patience. You will want to choose a day when you have a large number of hummingbirds visiting your yard and you will want to remove all other food sources, because this will improve your chances of success.
It truly amazes be that someone could actually get hummingbirds to feed from their hand. Personally, I don’t think I would ever have the patience for doing this. Nevertheless, I do love hummingbirds. Thank you, Abigail Alfano, for sharing with the world the steps of how you accomplished this remarkable task and also your personal photos of the event. What you have done is truly remarkable! You have also given others the hope that they too can accomplish this amazing feat as well.
If you would like much more information about hummingbirds, please click the links below. The sites contain many articles about hummingbirds, video clips about hummingbirds, an informative tips booklet on hummingbirds, and much more.
Click Here To Visit About Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds For Mom
December 27, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Flowers, Birds. Butterflies, and my favorite Hummingbirds…….Here in Florida we enjoy them from March to October…..May i ask what is your sugar formula????Many thanks and God Bless