How to Get a Hummingbird Out of a Garage
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A simple trick on how to get a hummingbird out of a garage. It really works! (See the comments for proof!)
Guest post and photography by Curt Casteel (Rachel’s Dad)
Every summer a strange phenomenon takes place in many American garages: Hummingbirds fly in, but they don’t fly out. They will stay in there, with the door wide open, until they keel over dead. Weird, right?
Here’s why it happens, and how to get a hummingbird out of a garage. Time to convince your family you are a “hummingbird whisperer.”
Why Hummingbirds Fly Into Garages
A hummingbird has the metabolism of, well, a hummingbird. Since their next meal is usually found inside something colored bright red, yellow, orange, or purple, their tiny brains are programmed to seek these hues.
Enter the Law of Unintended Consequences. The government requires every electric garage door opener to have a release handle so if it becomes stuck, you can pull this handle to manually raise and lower the door.
If you step out into your garage and look up, you’ll see that this dangling little handle is, that’s right, RED, and shaped roughly like a trumpet vine flower. You’re already ahead of me, aren’t you?
The unintended consequence of that red handle is that a hummingbird flies by an open garage, sees a little red “flower” inside, and zips in to investigate. Upon finding they can’t stick their tongues inside that plastic handle for some nectar, most turn around and leave. But a surprising number make a fatal error—they fly up.
Regardless of the reason, once they get it in their heads that “up” is the only way out, they refuse to fly through the open door.
This ends badly. The confused hummingbird will hover near the ceiling, searching every high corner of the room, until it has to rest, usually on the garage door track or a light fixture. It will repeat this cycle until it is completely exhausted and dies, which can take only a few of hours.
How to Get a Hummingbird Out of a Garage
Some of you this summer will head out into the garage with the kids to go somewhere and find one of our little feathered buddies in exactly the situation I’ve described.
Stay cool.
Load the family up in the minivan, back out into the driveway, and tell them, “Watch this.” Trot back into the garage and grab your leaf rake. Slowly, slowly move the business end of the rake up to within just a few of inches of the hovering or resting hummingbird.
Be patient. It will, depending on its level of exhaustion, land on the tines of the rake within just a few seconds.
Then very slowly lower the rake a couple of feet and move toward the open door. Once it sees more blue sky than garage ceiling the hummingbird will probably take off, but it might be so tired it needs to rest a minute even when you are all the way outside.
All the more time for you to look awesome for little onlookers.
Congratulations! You just saved a hummingbird’s life!
The rake didn’t work for us. We finally tried an electric leaf blower and was able to get the hummingbird away from the ceiling and blow it outside. It was flying in garage about 9 hours.
Oh goodness! That is a long time. Sorry it didn’t work for you, but glad you were able to get it out.
The trick for getting a hummingbird out of the garage works like a champ. Glad I discovered your post. Thank you! Saved a hummingbird today.
Glad to hear this worked for you Jim!
This worked for us too! Hummingbird kept flying near the ceiling in the garage and when we took the rake out it landed a few times on the tines but flew away when we lowered it. It got tired enough that it landed and let us lower it toward the exit. About 30mins with the rake.
Hi Charles! Glad this worked for you. Thanks for letting others know it took about 30 minutes for you. Perseverance certainly paid off!
We just had to do this. Worked perfectly!
So glad it worked!
Tried the rake method and it worked after a few tries. Bumped the rake handle and it flew off on the next to last try. He or she seemed really tired. Thanks!
So glad you were able to save the hummingbird Carl!
I gently scooped the hummingbird up with my hand and took her outside. It took her a couple seconds to fly away but she finally did.
Glad you got the hummingbird out safely!
It worked but it took quite a while. At first he hummingbird would not sit on the rake long enough for me to lower it. After a while (when it was tired of trying) it landed on the rake again and I tilted the rake towards the garage door opening and blue sky and it zoomed away. So happy we could help.
Glad you were able to get it out Nancy!
This author is BRILLIANT. Noticing a hummingbird flying above the garage opener, my wife and kids were scared to jump into the car parked in the garage to drive out for an appointment. I should let you know that I grew up hearing that hummingbirds would tap your temple and kill you!
Yet, this article literally described my setup so well (my wife and kids even drove out the garage in a minivan!), that I had the confidence to try it. After I let him try to escape for 60-90mins by himself, the hummingbird was so tired. He was so thankful to find a resting pad (my rake) floating in the middle of the garage he just dropped on it for rest. I took it slowly toward the exit and he kept panicking and flying back off the rake to the ceiling. Eventually, I walked slowly enough (and he was tired enough) to get outside. JUST like Rachel said, he saw the blue sky and did not immediately fly away. My kids should have seen how glorious I looked but they drove off in the minivan 1hr earlier!
Anyway, she is genius. This trick 1000% worked for me and was articulated so well, and I recall… I grew up thinking hummingbird could kill me!
Oh goodness! I’m sorry you had such a fear of hummingbirds growing up. But I am so glad this worked for you to help it find its way out of your garage.