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!
Thank you so much! I walked outside to find a sweet little hummingbird panicking & trapped in the garage. I googled what to do and it worked within 30 seconds!!! Thank you so much!!
That’s awesome! I’m glad my dad could help!
Unbelievable, it just worked for me. I could tell I was making matters worse for the little guy with a towel so I came in googled “how to” and your site came up. Grabbed a kitchen broom, walked back out the front door and into the garage. The little guy was still banging into things, so I put the bristled end of broom next to him and almost immediately he just went to it, sat down. I walked him outside the garage and off he went. My neighbors just happened to be outside having a discussion and were in total awe. I’m just not sure if it was because they saw Steve with a broom or because of what they had just witnessed, I’m sure it was the later. Excellent site. First time I’ve ever written anything on a public site but just had to tell your readers how smart you really are and YES it works like a charm. Steve D
We had a hummingbird trapped in the garage for hours last night when I decided to look for a solution online. Thank you so much for your post, the hummingbird went right to the rake and was free in just a couple of minutes. My three year old son was very relieved that the hummingbird would be returning to his family who surely missed him during the ordeal!
I used a rake but attached a hummingbird feeder, with brand new juice, to the rake. Worked in less than two minutes!
So glad!
oh wonderful the rake tricked work but I couldn’t get him to stay on the rake. So I hung my hummingbird feeder on the end he flew right over and fed all the way to freedom. 🙂
Hallelujah! Attach flowers if you got them!! After several failed attempts with our black rake, my daughter and I went back and read your comments; We picked some roses from our garden and attached with a hair band. The hungry lil hummingbird was attracted immediately. It still flew off several times when attempting to lower the rake, but it kept landing back on the rake and it took less than two minutes to get him out. Thank you so much. We were also curious as to what was causing hummingbirds to come into our garage in the first place (3rd one) Alas, hanging in the middle of the garage was the emergency cord with the red trumpet flower looking knob. We will be painting that white today. Again, thanks from a grateful mom and daughter and a feathered friend!
Thank you so much. Your tips helped me save a hummingbird today. It was trapped in my garage. It would not willingly land on the rake (mine was silver, not red), but i waited until it was worn out and had no other choice but to land. It had been trapped for two hours and frantic. I was relieved that your trick worked. I had to prevent it from landing on other surfaces (it really wanted to go toward the cords/wires near the garage door mechanism at the ceiling). It was as happy to be free as I was to be able to save it. Thank you!
So glad it helped!
Worked within seconds! Poor bird has been trying to get out of the garage for hours.. Despite the door and windows being wide open.
Thank you thank you!!
Awesome!
Thank you. We had one for a couple of hours. Was afraid he would die. Used our pool skimmer. He landed on net took him out and he flew away.
We used a hair band to attach a couple of brightly coloured flowers to the tines of the leaf rake and waited patiently until the hummingbird landed. Took about 15 minutes
Wow, great idea!
I must have a fickle humming bird in my garage because I’ve been working so long to get this poor little thing to stay on the rake. He’s tired I can tell but every time he lands and I slowly lower the rake he flies off. I hope he gets out soon….
Good luck!
I’ve had this happen several times a year and sometimes it takes a long time to get one out of the garage. I use a push broom that I have because it has green bristles. I also lower the top portion of a double hung window in the garage, move the broom over there and have them exit that way, I’ve found that lowering the bird low enough to go out the garage door frightens them and they fly right back in. The last time I had to get one out which was about a week ago I wasn’t having any luck so I hung a hummingbird feeder next to the open window and the bird went right to it, got a drink and flew right out the window.
7/19/15: after my husband tried to shoo the hummingbird out for over a 1/2 hour, I went on-line and Googled “hummingbird in garage”. Up popped this solution. I got out there with my red rake and within 10 min our hummingbird was free! Thank you!!!
So glad it worked!
We had no idea how many hummingbirds we would be helping out by sharing this little tip. Haha!
this poor little girl (think she was a girl since she was dull in color) she flew around and around for several hours, then I googled this article. I took the rack and for several minutes she wouldn’t stay on it no matter how I still and slow. Then I noticed the red and got 2 of my empty hummingbird feeders that look like strawberries and slid them on the tines and low and behold she went to it and out the door she flew….I cried……thanks so much
So glad to hear this!!
My granddaughter and my daughter called upset that they found a hummingbird in their garage. She seemed to have gotten stuck on the track of the garage door. My granddaughter said, Nani she gonna die, what are we going to do?
I google everything and found this post. I calmly read this to my daughter. She immediately, got a rake and within 3 mins I could hear my granddaughter screaming… Nani .. Mommy got her on the rack and she flew away. Yay!
Thanks for the info.
This will make my dad so happy (who wrote this post just for people like your daughter)!! I’m thrilled that it worked.
Rachel’s right–it did make me happy!
Also worked for me. Thank God for Google and thank God for Dad’s that share their knowledge.
Totally agree on both! Glad it worked!
This just totally worked! Googled hummingbird stuck in garage, found this post, and she was free in minutes after the rake trick!! Thank you.
Glad it could help!
Haha! I love this post. I get the feeling it will come in handy as our neighbors had this issue recently. Now I can look like a hummingbird whisperer too! Excellent. 🙂
First tape some red, purple, yellow or whatever color flowers on the end of a broom stick or the end of the rake. Next get the hummingbirds attention with it, keep in mind that this might take a couple of minutes. Once the hummingbird is attracted to it move it slowly out of the garage. This really works.
Sorry to say, this does not work. I will wait till the bird is exhausted and try again. Too afraid of the rake and the flowers.
I does work, I just did it. Took me about 5 minutes to be able to walk slowly enough …… but away he went. This DOES work. Helps to have a red rake tho’.
I tried the rake by itself and it didn’t work too well. I reread the posts and saw the one about adding flowers….voila!!! The bird was interested but still wouldn’t land on the rake. Then as he was checking out the flowers he saw the red pull cord from the garage opener, went down to check it out and he saw daylight and high tailed it out of the garage.
Thanks for the tips. I have one for everyone, I immediately painted my two pull cords black!
We just tried it on our little hummingbird and it worked. We had tried for hours to get him out. We too are going to paint our cord black! Thank you!!!!