August 29th, 2016

The hummingbirds have brought us no end of enjoyment this summer as they visit our cottage feeder.  The buzz of their wings beating at 60-80 beats per second announcing their arrival, hovering with incredible agility,  constantly adjusting their position with precision as the feeder sways in the breeze, tongues darting into the feeder ports to lap up sugar water mixed at a ratio of 1:4 to replicate the concentration of nectar in flowers.

This is a juvenile male ruby-throated hummingbird raised nearby among the dense conifer trees surrounding the cottage. Adult hummers were active at the feeder early in July, then seemed absent for a period.  Now it is the juveniles – at least three of them – getting their last licks in before heading south.  Adults have already left on migration, males go first followed by females.  Juveniles are the last to go.  They all go it alone – most ending up in Mexico and Central America – and will likely follow that same route each year after.  They have to put on a lot of weight before departure to sustain them in their journey, and this little guy has been fueling up at the feeder from about 6:30 a.m. until nearly sunset for several days now.  They will follow the flowers south through climates warmer than ours, finally making a 20 hour non-stop, 500km flight over the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s an article documenting the recent northward expansion of the wintering range of ruby-throats into the southern US.

Keeping feeders of any kind up won’t keep birds from migrating, but will benefit those who are passing through our yards on their routes south.

You can contribute to citizen science by sending in your own hummingbird sightings (and other species such as the monarch butterfly) to Journey North at https://www.learner.org/jnorth/humm/index.html