While watching birds, it is not uncommon to see one poop. It takes the form of a whitish fluid which is a mixture of solid and liquid waste. It is not urine.
Although, I have long watched local hummingbirds, I have never seen them discharge anything — nothing. That is, until this last week when my camera caught various hummingbirds discharging a liquid.
But, it was different than that of other birds: it was drops of a mainly clear liquid. Turns out that the primary foodstuff eaten by a hummingbird is nectar (sugar water). They extract the sugar from the nectar and expel the excess as urine.
A male Black-chinned Hummingbird pees.
Allistar that is an absolutely remarkable, amazing, and one of a kind photo. I am sure no one else in the world has captured that incident/second and so you should be recognized and proud!!
Stu Heard
When the camera was on the osprey nest just outside Nelson several years ago, I used to see the adults sit on the edge and poop overboard, so as not to soil the nest. Of course, the babies weren’t able to do that.
One day as I walked to the garden in early summer this year, a robin high in our linden tree pooped on my head. I had to laugh. I had just washed my hair. Later I googled, and found that there was a one in five million chance of this happening, and many cultures consider it to be a sign of great good fortune coming my way.