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hummer caught in spider web and gets away




On Friday, with Randy's posting about the hummer caught by the praying
mantis still vivid in my mind, I happened to see a hummer in an odd position
in my garden. It was upside down near a jewelweed plant, vibrating its wings
and going nowhere. It tried at least three times to fly but couldn't. It
took me a second to realize that it was trapped, probably by just one or two
strands of spiderweb, not visible from where I stood. There are spiders and
spiderwebs everywhere at my house -- this is the season. I just couldn't
bear to think of a hummer getting killed by a spider so I hurried over to
see what I could do. When the hummer saw me coming, it tried to jerk away,
and this motion freed it. Away it flew. (I wonder if entrapment might be
fairly common, especially at this time of year.)

Spiderweb must be very durable. Earlier this summer I had a hummingbird
coming to the feeders with something odd about one foot. At first I thought
it had a broken leg that just dangled. But when I got a close enough look I
saw that it had some kind of a slender, pod-shaped object, say one-quarter
to one-third of an inch long, hanging from its leg. The object appeared to
be held on by spider web. I assume that the bird flew through a web and
exited with a tangle around its leg. The hummer flew OK, but it didn't perch
at my feeder the way the other birds did. I saw the hummer and its burden
for several weeks and began to worry in August that the bird would be
hindered in migration by this thing that just would not drop off its leg. I
believe the bird was an adult female, and she's long gone now, on her way
south -- with baggage. 
Ginger_Travis@unc.edu
Chapel Hill, NC