- [Announcer] Funding for Georgia Outdoors has been made possible in part by The Imlay Foundation, and from viewers like you.

(lighthearted orchestral music) - You see these feeders everywhere, because people want to attract hummingbirds to their backyard.

It's like having little fairies fly around.

They can hover, they can fly backwards.

They can even fly upside down, and their wing beat is so fast, it makes a humming sound, hence the word hummingbird.

There are 361 species of hummingbirds.

The only hummingbird that nests in Georgia is the ruby-throated.

This is Sibley, the ambassador hummingbird for the Georgia Audubon Society, and Polly, his noisy, little companion.

Both are victims of window collisions, and Melanie Firr, Audubon's Director of Education decided to take a stab at keeping a hummingbird in captivity.

It's worked out quite well.

- Okay, so here is breakfast.

Hi, guys, ready for your bug juice?

Probably not going to go for this too, too eagerly.

They drink it reluctantly, but I do think it keeps them healthy.

Sibley is coming up on his third birthday.

- [Sharon] We'll show you how to make bug juice later.

- He's a really relaxed little bird.

He's mostly happy to sit on a perch, and look around at his surroundings.

In the wild, they do spend quite a bit of their time, 75% of their time perching.

- [Sharon] You're about to see Sibley get a bath.

It is hilarious and amazing, in that Melanie has had to figure all this out by trial and error.

Melanie, I cannot believe all the work you do.

I mean, but if I had a rescue hummingbird, I would do it too.

So they're going to get a bath?

- Yeah, we like to do outdoor showers when we can, but they spend a lot of their afternoons, when it's warm enough, out here, looking at the bird feeders, enjoying the bird sounds.

My husband made this custom table, so they can look out, have a good view.

You ready for a bath?

Get you in position.

And so we use the mist bottle.

He knows what this means, because he gets a bath almost daily.

- [Sharon] Does he like it?

- [Melanie] You can see his tongue coming out, testing the water there.

Just something to get the leaf up closer to his body.

Let me get him.

So in the wild, they would do something very similar.

They would find a leaf, you know, wet with rain or dew.

Oh my goodness, he's ready.

(chuckling) Look at him.

And they would just sort of shimmy, you know, a flighted bird would be able to hover and wiggle on the wet leaves, but Sibley manages pretty well.

- [Sharon] That is adorable.

- [Melanie] One of his favorite parts of his day, probably bath time, but we try to give the birds lots of time outside, daily baths.

I've got a little garden of flowers that I grow just for them, some fresh flowers in season.

You try to enrich their lives as much as possible.

- [Sharon] How did you figure this stuff out, like putting water on a leaf?

- Well, watching birds in the wild.

It took a little while, it took a little bit, actually, to figure out the best way to accomplish bathing for him.

I tried a couple of different things.

A shallow lid, didn't really know what to do with that.

But as soon as I put it on a leaf, like he would do in the wild, he had no trouble.

You'll notice that he's got a variety of different perches.

So because he's on his feet all the time, I want to prevent any sort of foot cramps, or foot issues that may arise from spending all his time on his feet.

So the rubber bracelets are one of his favorite perches.

It gives some cushion to his feet, but I also have the thin twigs, because I want to make sure he's gripping, and keeping his strength.

I use the pipe cleaners for like, a carpet for his feet.

So just different widths and textures to keep his feet in, you know, stretched and limber.

- [Sharon] By now you've figured out how much time Melanie dedicates to these little birds.

Look at how long it takes to make their bug juice.

So the first thing you do is get the fruit flies?

- Yeah, so we have our fruit flies that we culture and grow here so that we can, they're flightless, they're specially bred to be flightless so they don't just escape and fly all over my house.

So the first thing I do is freeze the fruit flies.

I had some already here frozen from earlier today, but I'm, so I just tap a few in the cup, and then we will freeze them for, only takes a minute.

I have a special powder, but it has protein, and vitamins, and minerals, so this is not what you would feed your wild hummingbirds.

You know, this is specially formulated for hummingbirds in captivity that can't catch their own insects.

- So I think a lot of people may not know that hummingbirds eat a lot of insects, I didn't know.

- It's a big part of their diet, and especially during breeding season, it's going to be really important for females to catch insects to feed their young.

So I use spring water, so that they're not getting the chlorine and other things that are in our tap water, but just mix the powder with the spring water.

- Melanie, you go through a lot of work every day.

- Well, it becomes a routine, so it really doesn't feel too taxing.

Just mix it up, and then, so this they'll get all day long.

- Oh really?

- But breakfast, you're seeing what what's breakfast right now, we'll have the added fruit flies, or even extra protein and nutrition.

So once the fruit flies stop moving around, and this is just a routine that I came up with, it's certainly not professional by any means, but tap them into the little bowl here.

- [Sharon] So you came up with this kind of on your own?

- I mean, this is a plastic spoon.

This is my mortar and pestle.

- [Sharon] Also you've got to crush the fruit fly?

- Yes, and so when I first thought about giving them fruit flies, I thought, "Well, I'll just release a few fruit flies in they enclosure, they can catch them."

But Sibley looked at me with disdain, and just the fruit flies, yuck.

He did not want things hopping around his enclosure.

So there is just that little bit of bloody nectar.

Dilute it with some of their regular nectar.

It's been interesting to note that they really do have tastes preferences, they seem to like their bug juice, as I call it a lot less than the plain nectar, and a lot less than the sugar water that they get at night.

- [Sharon] Back outside, you can see the preference.

Sibley is finally drinking the bug juice.

Look closely, and you may be able to see his tongue, but watch what happens when Melanie brings out the sugar water.

- Let me show you if he will go right for the sugar water when we, in fact, maybe you'd like to try holding it up to him?

Oh yeah, no hesitation there.

He already had quite a drink, so he was just topping off there, but he has his taste preferences, for sure.

This stuff with the added fruit flies, he can kind of, see, he hasn't had much since you, since we've been chatting.

- [Sharon] But he went right for that sugar water.

He eats more than twice his body weight every day.

Sibley weighs the same thing as a penny, 1 cent.

He's alert all day, but sleeps all night.

- Sun down to sun up, he kind of tucks himself down, and goes to sleep.

In the wild, during cold weather too, they can even go into torpor when they sleep, lower their body temperature, lower their heart rate.

- [Sharon] As I hold him, you can see why they are called ruby-throated, but the red is really an optical illusion.

The feathers have tiny microscopic air pockets that refract light.

Those feathers are really almost black in color, but when the sun hits just right, you see red.

When hummingbirds get ready to migrate, they put on a little more weight, but those tiny bodies fly hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles, weighing no more than a coin.

We know that because of people like Julia Elliott, who puts bands on the hummers that she traps.

We see some, and then finally one goes into the trap.

- [Sharon] This is what you've been waiting for, right?

- [Julia] What we've been waiting for, and a male, too.

(bird tweeting) Just getting the, yeah, the, just getting the band open, so I can get everything ready before I take the bird out of the- - [Sharon] She uses a toe sock to hold the bird in place.

- [Julia] So the first thing I do is I'm going to check and make sure the birds are already wearing a band.

Then you'd see me get really excited.

So the first thing that we're going to do is always put the band on the bird.

That way, if he is to get away from me, the important part is done.

He's got an identifying number.

- [Sharon] She measures his beak, his wing, and then she weighs him.

It's a process she's done hundreds of times.

- So I recorded this series of measurements, everything that we, oh, I didn't write his weight down.

So now we're going to let him go.

(hummingbird chirping) Don't be like that.

All right, how about if you eat, will that make you happier?

Oh, there you go.

Well, we kind of interrupt their feeding when we trap, so we try to give them a little.

- [Sharon] I get the honor of releasing the bird.

- Are you good here?

Let's see, I need her this way, in just kind of a flat, relaxed hand, yeah, just like that.

(hummingbird chirping) (laughing) Yeah, there you go.

(lighthearted music) - [Sharon] As we wait for another bird, this one gets our hopes up, but no deal.

Then this fellow took the bait.

Julia always has help, so she can concentrate on this.

- [Sharon] That's so tiny, how do you get that?

Look at that.

- [Julia] So the bands and pliers ready to go.

So before I take the bird out, I want everything, you know, ready.

- [Sharon] Sure.

(laughing) You see they gorged it through the stocking?

I gotta get him the right way.

(hummingbird chirping) - [Sharon] Oh, he's mad.

- [Julia] He is going to be, he's going to be a feisty one, - [Sharon] He's cranky.

(laughing) - [Julia] Yeah, you're doing all this blindly.

- [Sharon] Oh, he's so tiny.

- [Julia] A male.

First thing I'm gonna do is get the band on the bird's leg.

- [Sharon] How do you get used to doing something that tiny?

- Lots of practice, lots and lots of practice.

(birds tweeting) You can kind of see the, it's shiny, because it's new.

All right, we're gonna take a series of measurements here.

This is an adult male ruby throat.

Only the males have that red throat like that.

Females will have a white throat.

- [Sharon] A white throat?

- Yeah.

- [Sharon] So basically, correct me if I'm wrong, the male hummingbirds don't care about anything but mating?

- That is correct.

So hummingbird males are deadbeat dads.

So the females females raise their young on their own, so the males and females only get together.

They don't pair.

They really only get together for breeding, and then the males will go on to fertilize other females, while the females raised a young.

- [Sharon] You cad!

- I know.

Eight millimeters on the tail.

It's a beautiful forked tail.

- Oh yeah, that's pretty.

- When these birds are getting ready to move, they will put on a significant amount of fat.

Some of these birds, this bird weighs 2.62 grams, and it's not unusual to catch birds in the late summer and fall that weigh five and six grams.

So they doubled their body weight, literally in fat, in fat stores, and that's how they survive their migration.

So these birds have a long ways to go.

I'm going to see if he'll eat.

He's got pollen on his bill, can you see that?

- Yeah, look at that.

- Feeding it all of Gail's many, many flowers.

See the yellow on the base of the bill?

Hummingbirds are important pollinators, people don't think about that.

- [Sharon] He is a pretty bird that you rarely get to see this close up.

We're at the home of Gail Woody in Whitesburg, so this time she'll get to do the release.

(laughing) - Did you hear that buzz?

So tell me why banding these birds is so important.

- Well, by assigning an identity to these birds, by giving them a number and an identity, like a social security number, it allows us to track their movements.

We know individual birds, and again, if we recapture them again, we know who that bird is, where they've been.

So we're able to track things like migratory patterns, habitat, preferences, lifespan.

We can keep tabs on how long these birds live, and all of that is possible by the banding process.

- So there's a whole community of folks like you?

- Yes.

- And you keep in touch?

- Yes.

Yes, all the banding information that we take, so everything that I write down when I'm banding a bird gets sent to the bird banding laboratory in Maryland.

So that's a clearing house for all the data for banders in the United States.

So anyone that wants to study a certain species can actually contact the lab and get that banding information, not have to capture birds themselves.

Maybe they can just take that data, and do whatever they need to do with it, study.

- [Sharon] What are their personalities?

Are they different?

- Hummingbirds are mean.

(laughing) And I love to share that with people, because they're so tiny, people think, oh, they're so cute, and they're so sweet, and they're not.

If they were big birds, we would be in serious trouble.

They're very aggressive, they're very territorial.

You know, we get questions a lot, "Why don't how hummingbirds share?"

You know, the feeder has multiple ports at the bottom, and maybe one bird at a time will use the feeder, and that's because they don't like to share.

They don't cooperate with each other for the most part, so they don't understand that that feeder is a never ending supply of sugar water.

So when a bird goes to a flower, I use the analogy a lot, we've all eaten honeysuckle as a kid, right?

And we pulled a little stem through, there's this drop of nectar in there.

Well, that's what flowers produce, and it takes 15 minutes, 20 minutes for that flower to recharge.

So when a hummingbird finds a feeder, and can just guzzle nectar at will, they think they have found the mother of all flowers, and they're going to defend it at all costs.

So they don't share with each other, and they don't like each other for the most part, and people don't realize that, that they're aggressive birds, and feisty little birds, and I think that's what I like about them.

- Gail Woody is also in love with hummers.

Her back yard is designed with all the flowers they love, and great big feeders that stay full.

But you are beyond passionate about hummingbirds, why?

- Well, I love them.

I love everything about them, everything about nature, but I feel like I'm a caretaker of them.

I give them a place to come.

I have everything they need here.

For a habitat, you have to have a place for them to raise their young, so I have the trees they nest in, and build their nest in.

I have a place for them to seek shelter.

You see the trees here.

I feed them, and then I have a lot of bugs, because I do no pesticides, and I have a lot of insects for them, and I have a lot of flowers for them, too.

- So how much sugar do you have to buy?

Because you've got feeders everywhere.

- Yes, well, I have had as many as 23 feeders, so right now I just have three.

But yes, I buy a lot of sugar, a lot.

At one time I had a 55 gallon drum, and that lasted me two summers is all.

So now I back 20 pound sacks at a time, and sometimes two or three at a time.

So I get long looks at Walmart.

(laughing) - [Sharon] Yeah, is this woman making moonshine?

- Yes, correct.

We plan our vacation around them.

- You're kidding.

- Yes, and I was telling a friend that we were going to fly to Montana to visit our family in July, and I looked up the day of the flight, and the backyard was covered in hummers, so I had to call all the neighbors, so they would pitch in and help while I was gone, and I left five or six gallons of sugar water, so yeah, it's a job.

It's a commitment.

- Melanie called us back to her house to see a nestling, a chick so small, it couldn't stand up, and didn't have enough feathers.

So tell me about this little fellow.

I mean, we don't know if it's a girl or boy yet, right?

- We're not sure yet.

Of course, the ruby throat won't come in for several months.

We'll be able to tell when the tail feathers grow in, if it's a boy or a girl, but he or she was found on the ground near a driveway.

The finders could not locate a nest anywhere, or see an adult.

They did absolutely the right thing.

They made a makeshift nest, and they hung it close to where they had found the baby, and they watched for several hours to see if mom would come and visit.

And often parents will resume care in a, you know, a new nest.

They're very bonded with their young, but after several hours of observing this little orphan, mom never came, so she came into care.

Because of my background with hummingbirds, I get a lot of the calls, and I volunteer at a bird center.

- [Sharon] And of course, Melanie figured out a way to feed the baby.

- [Julia] She's doing the work, she's lapping.

But in the wild, the mom would fly around drinking nectar and catching insects, and then stick her bill down the baby's throat, and you know, regurgitate a slushy mixture.

- [Sharon] Instead, the chick is drinking a mixture Melanie made, and has figured out how to put its bill into the feeder.

That little tongue is at work.

So how many times do you have to see this little babe?

- About every 15 minutes, sometimes stretch it out to 30, but she lets me know, too.

She starts peeping and she gets hungry.

- Melanie gives the chick as much as it will take.

It eats about twice its body weight every day.

Days later, Melanie brought the chick to Wild Nest Bird Rehab.

The bird has learned to eat on its own, but they will still need to feed it once an hour.

If you find a bird, take it to a rehab center.

The same goes with an animal.

You can injure these little creatures, if you don't know what you're doing.

All kinds of birds are brought here.

Director, Nancy Ellen gets help from volunteers, but she still works long days.

When I'm looking at this place, this has to be chaos.

- It is, but it's organized chaos.

You know, we hope, and we're getting more organized every day, but yes, there's the feeding, and keeping up with the feeding schedules, which is most important, because they need to eat.

They need the calories.

And then there's preparing the foods, shopping for the foods, there's answering the calls, there's taking in the new intakes, then the paperwork.

I'm way behind on my paperwork, because that, of course, gets a low priority.

So yeah, there's always something.

And then, then there's cleaning.

If you know, you ever find a minute, it's a, then something absolutely needs to be cleaned.

- So you're talking about like what, 12, 14 hour days?

- [Nancy] The birds need to be fed for 14 hour days, so I usually work 15 or so.

- You must be exhausted.

- I am.

(laughing) But baby season's only through like, the end of August or September.

- Migration is a tough time for birds.

Georgia Audubon spokesman, Adam Begel says we have made it even harder.

Why so many migratory, birds injured, or abandoned?

What's going on?

- Yeah, well first, life is hard for migratory birds, just, you know, in it's normal sense.

You know, they are traveling great distances, they need to dodge predators, they need to find food sources, and precipitation, and hurricanes.

Life is just tough for migratory birds, but us humans have made it harder in a multitude of ways, and one of the big ones for migratory birds is buildings.

Birds have a hard time with reflective glass, and with nocturnal light, and our built structures cause the death of hundreds of millions, up to a billion birds each year, just in the United States.

- Hundreds of millions of, that- - Yeah, it's crazy.

The low-end estimates are 365 million birds per year, up to around 980, and the big issue, it's kind of a two-part issue.

One is nocturnal light.

So many of our small songbirds, those warblers, and vireos that people might be familiar with, they actually migrate at night, and they use the stars, they use the setting sun as some of the tools that they use to navigate, in addition to geography and other things.

And when they come over are illuminated spaces, you know, urban centers, but even little small rural towns, they're attracted and confused by that bright light.

And so they're kind of pulled into places maybe they shouldn't go, or wouldn't normally choose to go.

- Georgia Audubon has monitored window collisions in Atlanta for almost six years, walking around buildings, and looking for birds on the ground.

Unfortunately, many of the ones they find are ruby throated hummingbirds.

That's why rehab centers and people like Melanie are so important.

So rehab returned the bird to Melanie.

So she's been watching to make sure he can fly, and catch insects.

Melanie, did he pass the test?

Or she, it's a she, right?

- I think it's actually a little boy, it's all good.

Feathers haven't come in yet, but the tail looks a little bit split, so he passed all the tests, flying like a champ.

- [Sharon] Great.

- Catching insects in the air, nectaring from flowers.

- So we get to see him go?

- Yes.

He's more than ready to go.

Might take him a minute, or it might not.

(triumphant music) - Look at him go.

There's another one.

Oh, and that is the perfect way to end a show.

I'm Sharon Collins.

We'll see you next time.

(orchestral music) - [Announcer] Funding for Georgia Outdoors has been made possible in part by The Imlay Foundation, and from viewers like you.