Hummingbirds!

Peak activity at feeders and flower gardens is in late July and August.

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I photographed this adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Nate Popkin’s feeder outside Duluth on July 16, 2023.

This May, when Russ and I were visiting Naga-waukee Park in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, I noticed a hummingbird zip up into a tree, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but her nest, under construction.

I photographed this hummingbird building her nest on May 21, 2023, in Waukesha County, WI.

I studied her for about 10 minutes, thrilled to see her fly off for short periods, return with bits of lichens and strands of spider silk, work them into the nest, and use her breast and tummy to shape the inner cup.

(Same nest as above)

Russ had never seen a hummingbird at a nest before this, and I’m afraid he was a little more impressed than he should have been with what seemed like my extraordinary birding skills when it was really luck, not skill, that led me to the bird. Any time I see a hummingbird in flight, I try to follow it with my binoculars. Usually within a few seconds I lose sight of it in foliage or behind other obstructions. This time there was a clear view all the way to the branch with the nest. In my entire birding life, I’ve seen only 5 or 6 Ruby-throated Hummingbird nests, and found, on my own, just 2 of them. So yes, this time my standing in the right place at the right moment to be able to track this female to the nest was pure, unadulterated luck.

Yesterday, July 24, I received an email from Lee Guthrie about his partner Diane finding a hummingbird nest using that same technique. He writes:

I chanced upon this hummingbird nest yesterday while canoeing a backwater on the St. Croix river about two miles north of Houlton WI, across from Stillwater.

The red line points up to the branch where the nest is. Photo © 2023 by Lee Guthrie

We paddled under the branch and my partner Diane noticed the bird fly away. We went back to investigate and found the nest. I stood up in the canoe(!)¹ to get the picture of the inside of the nest.

You can see one unhatched egg and the chick. Photo © 2023 by Lee Guthrie.

There's an unhatched egg and a newly hatched egg. Feathers of the hatchling are visible. It looks like a ruby throated based on the make-up of the nest. It was difficult to see the color of the bird.

Female on nest. Photo © 2023 by Lee Guthrie.

There are better pictures out there but thought you would enjoy seeing these. Isn't this late in the season for raising a brood of hummingbirds?

(Lee gave me permission to post his splendid photos here.)

This bird and nest look exactly right for a Ruby-throat, the only species of hummingbird ever reported nesting in Wisconsin or Minnesota. Oddly enough, though, it’s not the only hummingbird species that was found in Wisconsin this summer: indeed, just last week a gorgeous adult male Rufous Hummingbird turned up at a feeder in Clark County and was seen and photographed by several birders for a few days. That individual may have escaped a fiery landscape this summer on its breeding range in the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest, but he’s not talking. We’ll never know what sent him this way.

To Lee Guthrie’s question about the lateness in the season, it would be late if this were this Ruby-throated Hummingbird’s first nest of the year, but it’s almost definitely her second nesting. It’s possible she lost her first young and this is a second attempt, but it’s also possible she finished raising two young successfully and this is a true second nesting. When weather and vegetation are favorable, it doesn’t take long for a newly arrived female Ruby-throated Hummingbird to choose a suitable male’s territory, select a nest site, and start construction. It takes roughly 5–10 days to build the nest, 2 days to lay the eggs, 2 weeks to incubate them, and 18–22 days to feed, protect, and educate the nestlings. When they fledge, the mother and babies become incredibly difficult to track, but it’s believed that the female continues feeding and educating her young for another 4–7 days, and during that time, which can happen up here as early as the end of June, she may start building a second nest. (Hummingbirds never re-use a nest.)

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird photo © 2023 by Lee Guthrie

The latest Lee’s female might have started building this nest so there’d be one hatched baby on Saturday, when Lee and Diane saw it, was on July 6. Ornithologists have recorded nest construction and nests with eggs as late as mid-August in Ohio and the beginning of September in southern Ontario.

Male hummingbirds have no family responsibilities except to defend a territory and attract and mate with as many females as will oblige. Each female loses interest in mating as soon as she’s laid her two eggs, but males optimistically stick around till mid- July just in case any new females show up, a resident female loses her nest or young, or a resident female successfully raises a batch of young in time to start again.

Those of us with feeders and/or hummingbird gardens see a surge of activity from mid-July through August. Local adults may visit more as some nectar sources dry up, especially during droughts, and local adult females may bring their fledglings to a feeder, one of the rare times we can watch three hummingbirds feeding side by side in a feeder without any squabbling. But as July progresses, the activity at our feeders becomes increasingly dominated by migrants—hummingbirds who nested or hatched further north—who are just passing through. Some of the plants that need Ruby-throated Hummingbirds for pollination, such as bee balm and jewelweed, bloom exactly during hummingbird migration.

Hummingbird migration is like a regular annual marathon except it’s not scheduled on a calendar. Each hummingbird takes off when its own body is at peak performance. For a short time in July, the number of adult males swells—even as local males load up on carbs and head south, males from further north are passing through. They’ll all be pretty much gone by early August. Fledglings move on whenever their bodies are ready—the first to hatch and become independent may be leaving even before the local adult males leave.

It takes adult females a while to get their depleted bodies ready for a long journey, but then they head out as adult females from further north continue to come through. The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds we see in early and sometimes even mid-September are adult females who needed extra time to recover from raising late broods (I presume Lee Guthrie’s bird will be among them) and young who hatched and were raised later than most.

But by October, a more likely possibility is a vagrant. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds may be the only species we expect in the Upper Midwest, but they’re exceptionally rare by October.

What are the other possibilities? Minnesota has 3 records of Rivoli’s Hummingbird (all in June or July), 4 records of Anna’s Hummingbird (all between October and December), 1 record of Costa’s Hummingbird (September to November, 2003), 2 records of Calliope Hummingbird (November–December and June), and at least 20 records of Rufous Hummingbird (May–December). Twice, I’ve had an adult female Rufous Hummingbird in my own yard, the first one from November 17–December 3, 2004; the second from November 9–December 4, 2021. I wrote a long blog post about the practical and ethical issues in dealing with such a late hummingbird.

During summer, the healthiest sugar water recipe is 1/4 cup of sugar per cup of water. During cold or wet periods, it’s perfectly safe and probably healthier to up the sugar to 1/3 cup per cup of water. Never ever use food coloring—it’s unhealthy! And be careful about any jelly you put into feeders for orioles, catbirds, and other species—hummingbirds have become mired in the sticky stuff and died. If you do use jelly, make sure to put it out in small amounts only, in feeders that don’t resemble hummingbird feeders, and away from where hummingbirds are likely to feed or rest. Attracting hummingbirds to our backyards provides us with ever so much joy and pleasure—the least we can do is make our yards safe for them.

1. If Lee hadn’t added the parenthetical exclamation point regarding his standing in the canoe, I’d have inserted at least three!