I am quite disappointed with this years showing of yard Hummingbirds. My place is just not abuzz with Hummingbird activity as at some other places I could mention. By now I usually have at least four female regulars at my feeders. I enjoy watching the female Hummingbirds feed, pick clumps of cattail fluff from the stalks I stick on the fence, and then fly off to their nests.

This year I have a lone Rufous male and very infrequently, a female Calliope. Luckily, even with the lack of needle-beaks, I still have something to watch; two Yellow-rumped Hummers have taken up the slack. It all began quite simply.

Every year a pair of Yellow-rumped Warblers stakes out the yard. The male is first to arrive very early in spring with snow still on the ground. It then survives as best it can, often dining at the suet feeder. Eventually a female shows up. As the weather warms, the male's rollicking song cascades down through the open door as if to say the good days are coming.

This year the suet feeder was still a Warbler main attraction, but some time during the first nights that I put out the Hummingbird feeders, the Warblers also developed a taste for sugar water.

At first I thought I was witnessing aberrant behaviour similar to that of the Hairy Woodpecker which somtimes will taking a black-sunflower seed from the tray and tapping it open in the crack of a tree. However, the Yellow-rumped Warblers' visits to the Hummingbird feeder are very frequent, at least 5 times an hour. The feeder they like best provides perches at the feeder ports so it is relatively easy for Warblers to stand while drinking. Often both male and female Warbler arrive together and drink on opposite sides of the feeder. A few sips is all they need and they're off again.

The nest of this pair is somewhere in the yard. A few days ago I saw the male with a beak full of insects, and from that I deduced both male and female Yellow-rumped Warbler take part in feeding the young. Shortly afterward, the male arrived at the Hummingbird feeder minus the insects, no doubt, having just fed his bugs to the waiting brood. His stop-off at his favourite watering hole must provide a change from domestic chores and a break from an all-bug diet. I felt like a bartender watching a favourite customer stop in during a hectic day. Soon the female joined him and then it was back to nest duties.

A male Rufous Hummingbird is the only real competition to the Yellow-rumped Warblers. Sometimes the hummingbird is so agitated by the alien invaders that he works himself into a real fury and chases the Warblers around the feeder. Eventually though, he gives up. The Yellow-rumps duck as he dives but show no signs of abandoning their sweet diversion. I'm sure the Warblers feel they can handle one rude customer at the watering hole.