Don’t Fly Away Big birds such as hawks, owls, crows, roadrunners, orioles, grackles, gulls, and herons can be hummingbird predators. The adult series is also available in paperback. Large Spiders can catch a small hummingbird in its web for a meal. Large insects like Dragonflies, Praying Mantises, and large flies like a Robber Fly, and have been known to stalk and strike at hummingbirds. Again, hummingbirds are aggressive and have been known to fend off large hawks and other birds from their territories. The Robber Fly continued his dirty work, feeding on the corpse for almost a half hour. The Asilidae are cosmopolitan, with over 7000 described species. The hummingbird took off with the Robber Fly attached.

Ants are also known for invading a hummingbird's nest and eating hummingbird eggs and even baby hummingbirds. Latreille was the authority for establishing the family in 1802. She got about twenty feet when she collapsed in a heap on the ground, Robber Fly still attached. The robber fly cannibalfly is featured in the book “Over the Hummingbird’s Rainbow: An Acre of America Backyard Nature Series” which is an expanded version of the nature blog with photos and stories. Man-made Obstacles. These books are all available on Kindle. The Asilidae are a family in the order Diptera, the true flies. The common name for members of the family is the robber flies.

Earlier in the week, I had photographed this Robber Fly.