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!
This didn’t work for me but I was able to trap him between two tennis rackets when he became really tired.
I was in my garage most of the day with the door open doing a massive rearranging and cleaning job. I was almost finished when I heard the high pitched chirps and saw the hummer trying to escape in the skylight. The odd thing is that we did cover our red release handle with blue tape so he must have seen something else that drew him in. I googled “hummingbird trapped in garage skylight” and read several different methods. Our garage has 10 foot walls and and the roof is pitched to another 8 feet, so I had to climb up the tallest ladder we have holding a long push broom. Not the safest feeling but I did not want this little guy to die. He did land on the bristles and as I slowly climbed down he flew back up every time. After three attempts, I tried again using a red rake, but now he was not cooperating and chirping and flying even faster. I actually gave up for about an hour and was about to go to bed, but after reading all these success posts I decided I had to try one more time. I taped some pink and red geraniums to one of the tines and just tried to get it as close to him as I could. After a few minutes he noticed the flowers and landed on the tines. I very slowly climbed down and walked out the garage toward a flower. It was pitch black outside but I did hear the buzz of his wings and he flew into the darkness. I hope he finds nourishment and makes it! I am so happy I found your post and that my one last attempt worked! Thank you!
This totally worked! Took about five landings on the rake, but it worked. Outstanding! Thank you.
I used a broom. Worked! Thanks!
Didn’t want the poor guy to keel over
Again, found a poor hummingbird in our garage late one afternoon in mid-April here
in the Upstate of SC . Tried my best as always, to get the little one out of garage doors and open single door. No luck, so I googled this site, But by that time the
little one was so tired I just hung a freshly filled hummingbird feeder from the
garage metal frame and he went right to it and drank and drank the sweet
liquid and seemed to get some of his strength back. It was too dark outside to find
the rake and he did get very weak and drop gently to the floor of the garage. I
placed him outside in my flower garden on a large soft dill plant. Checked this AM
and sure enough he was gone. He made it!! However, the first thing this morning
I wrapped the red knob that releases the garage doors with black duck tape.
Hopefully this will keep the little ones out of our garage. I could never figure out
why the hummers always would fly into the garage. Never in a million years
thought of the red knobs. It now makes perfect sense why. Great tip and I will
pass it on via my emails to all of my bird friends. Today is a special day.
HAPPY EASTER TO ALL OF MY FELLOW BIRD LOVERS.
THANK YOU for this post! My heart sank when I realized the hummingbird that flew into my garage did not know how to get out, in spite of the garage door and side door both being wide open. I Googled “hummingbird stuck in garage”. Yours was the first post I saw. It took me about 15 minutes to help her find freedom. She landed on the rake several times, I’d almost have her out and she’d fly back in. But finally…success!! I like the additional ideas being posted like adding flowers to the rake or using hummingbird feeders to lure them towards a window or the garage opening. Also, I will be changing our ‘red’ garage door pull, as suggested, as well. Again, thank you!
Always happy to hear of another success story. Awesome, Tina!
Success, thanks so much for this post. All of the neighborhood kids were cheering.
This. Is. Awesome.
That’s the kind of thing I love to hear, Jeremy.
As an addendum, I was working in our garage a couple of days ago when I noticed one, then a second, then a third hummer fly in, check out the red handle quizzically, then fly right out again, no problem. The next one who came in looked over the handle for a second, then flew right up to the ceiling and banged his head. He just couldn’t figure out how to leave and eventually had to be rescued via the “Thriving Home Method.” Makes you wonder! It also prompted us to finally paint that red handle green, as recommended by previous poster Katy Sanchez.
OMG! This totally worked. My husband texted me while I was at the hair salon and freaking out because there were 2 h-birds flying around in the garage. I googled for information, and found this article. I texted it to him, and sure enough, he slowly lifted the rake up to the ceiling and the sweet little bird climbed on and flew away when the rake was brought outside!! Thank you so much for this awesome information…we love all animals!
Sweet!!!
Spray painted that stupid handle. If the opener stops working we know where it is and how to use it. Does NOT need to be bright red if it turns an open garage door into a hummingbird death trap. I suppose some idiot government reg requires it to be red and thus will never change.
Yay! It worked! Took several failed attempts but finally he/she stayed on the rake long enough for me to guide them to the door. 🙂
This worked like a charm! Had two humming birds stuck in my garage this evening. Thanks for sharing the information.
Thank you for this. Guy’s been up there for hours. Attached the base of a hummingbird feeder to a rake, stuck it up there, and that starvin’ little fella was out of there in seconds. I even got it on video. Thanks again.
Worked for me without colors. It took awhile to convince the little guy that this rake was a good place to rest but after a few attempts, he hung on and off we went out of the garage. Whew!!! Thanks so much!!
I had just used the rake trick for the first time today.. at dusk . It took a few tries tho but eventually the little guy was getting exhausted enough that he landed on the rake & I was able to set him free..I wish I had the energy these beautiful birds have!! I will have a humming bird
feeder hanging on my open garage door for the rest of the summer.. Hopefully no more frantic moments for the birds or ME!! Great post!!
This happened to us last year and after the poor thing dropped from exhaustion, I scooped her up and had her perched on my glove until she unexpectedly flew away. So today when it happened again, I went to Google first and found this post. Omg, within ten minutes I had her out! Thank you so much for this post!
My wood shop has a 16 foot ceiling and Hummers seem get stuck up high no matter what methods I use. I have hung feeders at the end of a 12-foot pole, eight-feet high, and have removed the door emergency handle. The door is 12-feet high and I tried hanging a feeder on the bottom when it’s open to discourage them from needing to enter to feed, but no luck. They continue to fly back and forth in the very peak of the shop and refuse to come lower and leave. Greenhouse screen hung on a home made roller blocking the entrance is my next plan, unless someone has an easier and cheaper solution.