The past couple of days have been very interesting. Friday night a raccoon managed to reach the hummingbird feeder and destroyed all four bee guards in the process. Last night it raided the hornet trap which I had sealed up but not removed from the tether! I took in the feeder and was going to call it a season but when I went outside this morning to fill the regular feeder there were two hummers flying around the yard so I borrowed guards from a new feeder intended for next year and put the old one back out (yes, higher than before!). Sure enough at least two hummers returned and were frequent visitors for the rest of the day.
At one point I went to the window and a female at the feeder stopped feeding, flew right at me and hovered (stared me down!) for several seconds about a foot from the window. Was that ever cool!; of course I wasn't ready with a camera when that happened.
Something else interesting happened today. Twice after feeding a hummingbird flew up into the bushes towards a group of sparrows and both times one of the sparrows actually chased the hummer away. The hummers have been around since late June and this is the first time I've seen this type of behavior from other birds.
Last male was seen on Aug 25 but some are still being reported up north so I will keep watching for them here.
