Finished
Fastest Things on Wings; Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood by Terry Masear a few days ago. Started rereading it, I like it so much.
So, late in the book the author drops that it took 3 months before any HBs discovered the feeders she put out in her yard, presumably before she got into HB rehab. Sheesh, she's in Hollywood, where HBs are extremely common, around here, AFAIK, not all that common at all, is my impression based on my experience here and having read Masear's book. So, I figured I shouldn't be to optimistic with my 4 feeders. I had put out 3 of them, naively thinking they'd attract HBs like flies on shit, silly me.
Not being acceptable to leave feeders out without cleaning them every few days (HB's can die a "horrible death" from feeding on infected sugar water, said Masear), I brought them in a couple months ago or so, cleaned them and put in storage. So, having seen what Masear said about waiting 3 months, I reasoned that now or never, the weather's gotten quite warm (not so much the last few days but we had a much warmer than usual start to summer here in the Bay Area). I put out 3 of my feeders a few days ago. However, my yellow plum tree has a really big crop of plums hanging on it. In a couple weeks, they will be ripe, but the birds are already starting to pick at them. They fall and make a mess, get under foot. Last year I bought owl cutouts. I hung one of those up about 3 feet from one of my cheap Walmart HB feeders a couple days ago, figuring it will chase away birds, probably HB's too, but I can take it down after plum season's over.
This afternoon I'm hanging up more stuff to scare away birds, aluminum foil, cardboard. I'm standing 3 feet from the owl cutout, also 3 feet from a feeder and hear a humming sound as a HB settles on the red Walmart feeder and has lunch in front of me. A moment later it hovers less than 2 feet from my head for 15 seconds, just looking at me! I suppose from this point onward I can expect HBs to know about my feeders, well, at least one!
I'll try to bring a point & shoot with me when I go out there and get some pictures. I figure it's probably Allens or Annas, just guessing.
BTW, I spotted a HB a few days ago on my daily hike. It was feeding on a lemon tree blossom. It was the most beautiful lemon tree I've ever seen, just healthy as hell with gigantic lemons hanging all over it. I picked off one big one (10.7 ounces) and brought it home, thinking MAYBE I can grow a similar tree from its seeds. I have no idea. The lemon's somewhat under ripe. It has a lot of yellow, but a fair amount of green on it and it feels quite hard. I've got it sitting on my kitchen window sill where it gets afternoon sun, maybe it will ripen.