1-3 times a week or so we get a bully at the feeder. He will perch on the tree branch right between the two feeders and chase all the other hummies away for hours. I'll sit down with the garden hose 10 feet away from the feeders and spray near (not directly at) the bully. This chases him away for only a few seconds. He will fly behind the fence and hide from my site, then immediately come after any hummingbird that comes near. I'll spray at the fence to make him relocate. He will persist and I keep on spraying till after 7-10 minutes he will give up. You would think 4-5 sprays would deter him, but it takes 20-25 times. Persistent little things! Please, Never spray directly at the bird because they are very fragile. Bully or not, we don't want to injur the little brat. He's got his reasons to guard the feeder, we just don't agree haha. Just spraying in his general direction is enough to shoo him away, and eventually make him give up.

What did you use for the red feeders?

You can set your feeder on a flat surface but do keep an eye open for ants and other insects. With the feeder placed like that it'll be easier for them to get to the sugar water. Hummingbird feet are so small and weak the birds aren't really capable of walking.They'll flop and flounder around on the ground to move along but not really walk. Their order name is Apodiformes which is Latin for "footless". But as long as they can hover or perch at a feeder, they'll use it.

I always assumed Colorado's Front Range, where we received a scant 15" of rain a year amd any time the relative humidity got above single digits was what I called a "muggy day," was an arid climate. It seems every bit as wet as when I lived in the middle of the rainforest on Oahu compared to south-central Arizona. No, I'm not complaining, I hate humidity with a burning passion and rain and clouds are my arch nemesis. But, you're righr. The critters here are water desperate, though, maybe not as much here on the western edge of suburban Phoenix. Plus there is a lot of agriculture here in Buckeye so irrigation canals are still more common than stop lights. I do have a bird bath that I keep filled, so there is water present for them. I assume the insects use it every bit as much as much as the birds, but they don't get trapped in it, so I don't find their corpses floating in the tray like I do the hummer feeder. No, I haven't been to the Sonoran desert museum yet, Tucson is a solid 2-2 1/2 hour drive yet from where I'm at, so I haven't made it that way really (I did visit Tombstone when my wife was here for interviews back in October and drove through). Right now though, the hummer species list is pretty limited. I get Anna's here at the house and have seen Costa's around, but most others, from my understanding, are as transient as I am and wont be around until spring. As far as I know, the European honeybee and its Africanized counterpart are wholly indistinguishable outside of a laboratory setting. That is why it is "presumed" that all Apis mellifera in this corner of the world are of the subspecies/hybrid "scutellera" (Africanzied/killer bee). That being said, I do NOT wamt to spread fear, but awareness is a great tool. Just like all animals, and I have worked in close proximity to everything from bison to rattlesnakes, they operate on DEFENSE rather than offense. A healthy respect goes a long way and like my boss at USFWS used to say "it's a herd, not a gang."