Any excuse for a post.

Two days ago I posted this on my other blog, saying it was time to buy sugar for the hummingbirds.

How is this relevant to a travel blog you ask????

Around here things like Labor Day, first day of school, and the arrival of loads of hummingbirds signal that the fall/winter camping season is just about on us!  (OK, I know, as an excuse for making this a relevant post it's a bit of a stretch but I'm getting itchy. . .)

Anyway, on Monday we made a run into town and I picked up 10 lbs. of sugar and made up 2 gallons of syrup. (Which only took 8 cups of sugar so we still have plenty more!) At about 1530 (3:30 in the afternoon for non-geeks) I filled the feeder up to the top. Just less than 24 hours later, or after about 12 to 13 feeding hours, the feeder was bone dry and I had to fill it up again!

Just a portion of the crowd battling for space at the feeder.

As I type this the feeder is sitting about 15' away over my left shoulder and the constant bumble-bee hum of tiny wings and incessant chirping of battling hummingbirds, so far only the Ruby Throats we usually see around here, is drowning out the angry buzzing of  hatching wasps up in the crevices of the blown in insulation over my head. (Do wasps hatch??)

It's turning out to be surprisingly difficult to get a good clear picture of the swirling, diving mass of birds but at least in this one I managed to get the ruby throat of a male.

It's only been 3 hours or so since I filled the feeder and it's already down by 1/3. The Cardinals, usually a fairly brazen bird around here, have retreated in the face of the aggressive little buggers and abandoned the full seed feeder next to the hummingbird feeder for the empty seed feeder farther away. I guess I'm going to have to fill that one too before closing up for the night.

Even these guys have to take a break once in a while, though this one doesn't look particularly happy about it.

Besides, I caught a glimpse of a Baltimore Oriole this afternoon, either a 1st year male or a female, and I wouldn't mind enticing it to stick around a day or two.

I had to squash this video down to get it small enough for the limits of this blog space and it seems to freeze for the last few seconds but it's still  much clearer than the video in the other post. The microphone on the camera is limited and, even though I was standing pretty close, (Close enough to feel tiny little drops of hummingbird crap landing on my head!) you will probably have to turn the volume up to hear the chirping and occasional wing-slaps