Our other feathered friends

Here's a trivia question for you: What is tiny, territorial and can eat you out of house and home?

The answer, of course, is a hummingbird.

We saw hummingbirds when we first moved to the farm a year ago, so we assumed the previous owners must have had feeders for them. This spring, I promptly went to the farm store to get a feeder so they would stay this year. We had a beautiful, ruby-throated male adopt the feeder. Shortly after, some juvenile hummingbirds wanted to dine as well. However Ruby (our creatively named male) would have none of it! He shooed away all other birds. Ok, time to do some research. Sure enough we found out hummingbirds are extremely territorial. Luckily, I received a second feeder as a Mother's Day gift and hung it about 15 feet from the first. Nope, no good. That too, is apparently in Ruby's 'zone'. So it was moved to the other side of the house, outside of Ruby's view. Right? Wrong! Ruby now buzzed back and forth between the feeders running any intruding hummingbirds away. What a jerk! If he wants to play mean, fine, we'll play mean. I went back to the store for yet a third feeder. Let's see him try to monitor three feeders! He tried, but for the most part other hummingbirds get to drink now. Ruby tends to stick to the first one he found, the ladies mostly use the second and the juveniles like the third.

Everyone is happy and apparently very thirsty. I have a hard time understanding how such tiny little birds drink so much. Where does it go? I'm not sure, but I do know that we and especially Buddy enjoy having the little birds around.