not daffodils, my friends on their way back to Central America

 

Sept. has been busy, have had 15 to 20 humming birds at a time some days. Slowing down some now. but still have 6 to 8 at various feeders.
 
Regards,
Larry, in Southaven, Mississippi

 

6 comments for “not daffodils, my friends on their way back to Central America

  1. Hi Larry –

    Keep those feeders filled, the migrants are still coming through.
    Saw two at the feeder yesterday.
    I’m sure they are headed your way. : )

    Linda

  2. I’m envious – you lucky people to have himmingbirds in your gardens. How many different kinds frequent N.America and are the different species confined to certain areas? What species in Larry’s picture ?
    Brian

  3. Hi Brian !

    Don’t envy us, we bird lovers know how fortunate we are to have them in the Americas.

    PBS is repeating a video on hummers now and it’s pretty spectacular.
    Here is the URL if you’d like to watch:
    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/hummingbirds-magic-in-the-air/video-full-episode/5475/

    My guess is that all 4 birds on Larry’s feeder are female Ruby Throats, they’re migrating south now. The males departed at the end of August. While more and more vagrants of other species are being identified on the East Coast, the vast majority are RTH.

    Linda

  4. The Hummers are about finished here also. Sorta a relief, at peak I make at least a gallon of sugar water every other day and it is amazing how dirty the feeders can get. Constantly washing feeders and making sure sugar water is made up! The Ruby Throat is the only kind we have here.

    Time for a RAIN so we can begin planting daffodils!

    Char, Sheridan, Arkansas

  5. I think I have seen the last of the hummingbirds here in Central Ohio.  They are
    all Ruby Throats.  The sexes do look different.  The male has a black head, a
    very white neck band and the bright metallic ruby red bib on the front.  The
    female is dark green with a dark green head and a less vivid white neckband. 
    Thanks Linda, I didn’t know that the males left first.  I only have to do a cup
    or so of sugar water a day in my feeder.  I don’t get that many birds – maybe
    ten or so.  However, the odd thing is that the chickadees have started drinking
    from the feeder, too.  Since they stay around all year, I guess I have to fill
    the feeder until it is below freezing.  I have other strange birds.  One of the
    woodpeckers, a female Downy has decided the seeds in the finch feeder are good
    and eats some of those.  Then I had a female cardinal who wanted some suet and
    discovered that if she flapped her winds rapidly, she could hover long enough to
    take a bite of suet.  Later she brought her mate to teach him how to do it and
    they both taught their babies.  This year I have two families of cardinals who
    eat the suet and some have figured out how to hold onto the wire feeder.  Bird
    watching is really interesting.
    Donna

  6. The discussion about hummingbird feeders reminds me of photos I took back in my film days. We had a hummingbird feeder hanging at the end of a long pole which was anchored to our deck railing, at a 45 degree angle, two stories off the group. Well, our local squirrels had developed a taste for the nectar, but we thought they couldn’t get at it at that location. Wrong!

    One afternoon I spotted a squirrel that had shimmied up the pole, used one front paw to grasp the lip of the feeder and pull it to him! His other three paws and his body [including the tail] were wrapped around the pole while he slurped away and emptied about a third of the feeder bottle!

    I grabbed my film camera, went upstairs and shot an entire roll of film! Then Larry moved the feeder to another, hopefully, squirrel-proof location!

    Now we just have a bunch of hummingbird feeders scattered around our yard, and watch as those territorial birds chase other hummingbirds off “their feeder.” They, and the squirrels, are amazing.

    Vicky Eicher

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