Mystery Solved

It’s no secret that my knowledge of bird behavior is in the negative numbers so I considered it a win-win moment when I learned something new about hummingbirds this evening. After I got home from work Lizzie and I went outside looking for a blip. Actually, I was looking for her to do something I could blip. She pretended she didn’t know that. Anyway, we both heard this strange little clickety-clickety-tic-tic-click sound. She looked up, I looked up – nothing. The clickety-clickety-tic-tic-click sound moved across the yard seemingly without the aid of any carrier. Lizzie lost interest almost immediately, but after a lot of peering into trees and listening, I spotted this little fellow who was making the strange sounds. I didn’t know hummingbirds did that. I’ve heard them argue with each other and I love the high-pitched whine of their wings when they fly by, but I had never heard the clickety-clickety-tic-tic-click sound before.

Fortunately, hummingbirds are not included in my landlord’s ban on feeding birds, so I’ll leave the feeders out and hope the little guys stick around. The bird ban makes me sad because I used to have a wonderful deck with bird feeders and I enjoyed them so much. Unfortunately, any kind of bird feeder where I live now draws the neighborhood flock of pigeons and they are very aggressive. They’ll eat just about anything and there's about 150 of them. When they descend on the yard, nothing escapes except unshelled peanuts so the squirrels and blue jays are still happy.