How Do You Remove Hummingbirds From Your House?
Hummingbirds are beloved visitors of gardens and backyard wherever they can be found. As such, it can be quite the surprise when you open your garage to find that there is a hummingbird hanging out there.
If you notice that your garage has become the new home for a hummingbird, it is important for you to do what you can to guide the hummingbird back outdoors without hurting it. In order to do this, you first have to understand why a hummingbird may be in your garage in the first place and how you can prevent this from happening.
How Do Hummingbirds Get Inside the House?
Chances are that you keep equipment, toolboxes, bikes, and cars inside your garage. Most people will have one of these belongings in a bright color, whether that is red, yellow, orange, purple, or another vivid color that is commonly found on flowers. Hummingbirds, by their nature as birds that feed off the nectar of a flower, are designed to seek out these colors.
When you open your garage door, a hummingbird may catch a glimpse of these bright colors inside your garage. In fact, all garage door openers have bright red release handles as required by law, and these are often in a vaguely similar shape as the favorite flower of most hummingbirds. This is one of the main reasons why hummingbirds are drawn to garages, as they want to approach the supposed flower.
Once the hummingbird realizes that the garage door opener is not actually a flower, they plan to leave. Due to how hummingbirds tend to act, they almost always fly upwards, often into the garage ceiling, which they do not understand is blocking them from their exit outdoors.
Opening the Garage and Preventing Distractions
In order to help the hummingbird out of the garage, you are going to need to create a large exit. The best way to do this is by simply opening the garage. Keep in mind that this may be a stressful process for the hummingbird, so make sure to keep an eye on it so that you can take action if its distraction and exhaustion take the best of it.
Once the garage has been opened and you have moved your car out of the way, you will want to do what you can to cover up any other sights of the outdoors and sources of light. Any windows in your garage should be covered and the lights should be kept off. This will help the hummingbird pay more attention to the way outdoors than anything else in the garage.
How Do You Guide a Hummingbird Out?
Now that you understand a little bit of why the hummingbird decided to enter your garage, your next step will be to figure out how to get hummingbird out of garage. Hummingbirds can exhaust themselves to the point of death or near death in a matter of hours, so as soon as you see the hummingbird, you need to act quickly to aid it in its escape.
The first thing that you should do is remove items that would hinder the hummingbird’s ability to leave or stress it out even more. This includes anything that makes noise, any bystanders or pets, and any brightly colored objects (if possible, as you likely can’t move a red car out of the garage with the hummingbird in it), and so on.
Your next step will be to make the outside more appealing. This includes turning off the lights and opening up any windows in the garage so that the hummingbird only sees the true exit. This is when you would use brightly colored lures near the exit to try and bring the hummingbird closer to where it wants to go.
Creating Tools to Guide Hummingbirds Out of the House
There are a couple of contraptions you can make to aid in the process of getting the hummingbird out of your garage. For instance, you can place red, orange, or yellow objects by the exit to the garage. After all, if this is the color that brought the hummingbird in here in the first place, it will be quite helpful in getting the hummingbird out of the garage as well.
If you have hummingbird feeders, you will want to move these to the entrance of the garage as well and fill them up if they have run out. Your hummingbird, likely exhausted from trying to find an exit through the ceiling, will be highly enticed by the smell of the fresh nectar or sugar water. The bright colors of the feeder will also help in bringing the hummingbird out of the garage.
Physically Removing the Hummingbird From the Garage
There is a chance that these steps may not be enough. At this point, the hummingbird will be frantically trying to escape, but will also be immensely and dangerously tired. If you have a rake, yardstick, or any other type of pole you can use, you should bring it into the garage at this point.
You will want to slowly and gently raise the end of the rake toward the hummingbird, but not touching it. If the hummingbird is exhausted enough, it will perch on the end of the rake. It may take a few tries, depending on the bird’s stamina, but eventually it will quickly want to land on the rake so that it can rest for a bit.
Once the hummingbird has perched itself on the rake, you should lower the rake ever so slightly, only by a couple feet, and begin moving slowly and carefully toward the exit where there are clear skies and open air. The hummingbird will likely fly away as soon as it sees that it can access blue skies again, but if it has really tired itself out, it may choose to rest on the end of the rake for a little bit.
What About Handling the Hummingbird?
Unless you are an expert, are trained, or know precisely what you are doing, you should never try to handle the hummingbird physically. Doing this can cause damage to the hummingbird and possibly to you yourself.
The hummingbird will see you as a predator and begin exerting itself even more to try and get away or possibly attack you if it feels threatened enough. Given the fact that they can lethally exhaust themselves in a matter of hours just by trying to find an exit in a garage, trying to fight off a perceived threat is even more dangerous for the little bird.
Additionally for you, you could get injured by the hummingbird’s attempted attacks. The hummingbird likely cannot damage you too much, but it isn’t a good idea for anyone.
The Takeaway
During the spring and summer seasons, there is a chance that you may come home to see a hummingbird desperately trying to find an exit through your garage’s ceiling. It is important to act quickly as these little birds are known for exhausting themselves to death.
With patience and thinking ahead, you will be able to either guide the hummingbird out yourself or let it perch on a rake and be transported outside your garage. You should never try to physically handle the hummingbird yourself.
