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 upon 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!
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.
We tried this trick and was not successful. The hummer would just fly into a corner or up higher than the rake. After an hour or more with no success my husband and son left me to myself to agonize over what I thought would be the demise of this beautiful little creature.. until I decided I have a hummingbird feeder! What if I hung it on a shepherds hook lured it down and voila out she went!
So glad you were able to get the hummingbird out! Thanks for letting others know what worked for you.
My husband, Rachel’s dad, is the author of this article and I am in the photos. (If I had know the article was going to take off, I would have dressed up.) Anyway, we still use this technique when hummingbirds occasionally get in our garage and if we are patient It works. However, several people have suggested using a broom and we will try it and report back. I’m glad the article has helped so many people.