Battle Royale'

Some hummers can feed in peace, others feel they have to dominate the entire feeder, not letting any other birds feed. Occasionally it is only a single feeding port that is dominated.

Recently I have been filling the feeders on Mt. Lemmon that support the activities of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network and spending some time watching and photographing the action.

Last evening, the feeders were packed with all kinds of activity, including the above mentioned "defense". Since the action is so fast and the birds so small, I thought that one bird simply chased the others away.

Here we can see this isn't always true. This male Broad-Tailed hummer is ramming the female Broad-Tail in flight! Three other Broad-Tails look on; The one perched on the right is an immature male.

Canon 20D - 1/500th second, 500mm @ f/ 6.3, ISO 3200