I was reminded of big ocean fish and birds attacking a
school of smaller fish from all directions. But in this case it all happened in
a tree in my back yard.
For a fifteen or twenty minutes, a horde of warblers and
gnatcatchers were harvesting bugs from every flower, branch and leaf. It was
all happening in one small area (a few feet in all dimensions). Suddenly a
humming bird was in the thick of this warbler and gnatcatcher frenzy. The
hummer darted – back and forth, up and down, a foot or two in each dart, multiple
darts per second – apparently catching small insects that the warblers were
stirring up. The hummer acrobatics lasted for over a minute, which is time enough
for the hummer to catch dozens of tiny flying prey.
The marauding horde of warbler species in my little yard
this morning included:
Chestnut-sided warbler
Wilson’s warbler
Blue-winged warbler
Mourning warbler
Blackpoll
Redstart
Magnolia warbler
Nashville warbler
Gnatcatchers, warblers and hummingbirds. Mini-sharks of
the treetops.
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