I stood in front of the kitchen window and watched an aerial fight in the backyard. There was a lot of diving and swooping going on. Another sign of autumn approaching appeared this week.

There are two hummingbird feeders and one oriole feeder in my yard. The orioles left when their young fledged so their feeder has been sitting with the same level of syrup for the past few weeks; until this week. I noticed that the feeder was almost empty. The hummingbirds have been in a feeding frenzy. They are preparing for their journey south.

A pair of ruby throated hummingbirds have been in the yard all summer. The motion in the yard that caught my eye had me watching four of them in action. I'm assuming that one pair were the regular visitors and the other pair were just stopping in for food.

They are very territorial and when one began to feed, another dived at it to chase it away. This continued for more than ten minutes. The divers came in swift and scolding. I could hear the chatter through the open window.

When one would give up on the nectar feeder and visit the scarlet runner bean flowers instead, it would get attacked again. There was no sharing of food happening on this day.

What a treat to watch these little birds in action. They will soon be gone to warmer climates and I'll have to wait another year to see these beauties again.