Hummingbirds!
As migration peaks, we wonder about their numbers this year.
(Listen to the radio version here.)
Last month, a lot of people on a Minnesota birding listserv commiserated about the low numbers of hummingbirds they were seeing this year. I also heard directly from a few of my own readers and listeners with the same problem. I know that some of the concerned birders pay close and consistent attention to their hummingbirds, so their reports are worrisome. But although a single outlier year in one area can be indicative of a wider problem, it can also be due to strictly local factors, here or where our backyard birds wintered or passed through during migration, and sometimes local factors don’t kill birds but simply divert them elsewhere. So the frustrating answer to the question, “Does my lack of hummingbirds this year indicate a problem?” is, we just don’t know.
I don’t have the discipline to keep an accurate count of my own backyard hummers, but their activity here this year seemed pretty normal. My first showed up on May 10, about exactly when I’d expect, and though we had a cold, late spring, I seem to have had normal hummingbird activity at my feeders this year.
Hummingbirds are seldom found dead, but hummingbird banders do retrap some already-banded individuals, giving us at least a little insight into their life expectancy.
At least four Ruby-throated Hummingbirds originally trapped as adults were retrapped more than 8 years later, making them each a minimum of nine years old when they were released alive and healthy.
I try to take hope from how sturdy hummingbird bodies are and from my own unremarkable hummingbird year, but it is worrisome that several more careful observers in other spots in Minnesota were seeing lower than usual numbers this year. The overall trend, thanks to more and more people planting pollinator gardens, is up, but as we wait for this year’s spring and fall banding numbers and various breeding bird atlas and survey results, we can help hummingbirds if we:
provide vegetation that supports hummingbirds and the insects they feed on;
protect spiders because hummingbirds need their webs to construct their nests;
avoid ALL use of insecticides, which are both dangerous to the hummingbirds and also kill their only source of protein—insects and spiders;
use only ¼ – ⅓ cup of white granulated sugar per one cup of safe tap (NOT softened!) or bottled (but not distilled) water in our feeders;
minimize backyard hazards by making our windows bird-safe, keeping cats indoors, etc.;
participate in community science projects such as eBird to give researchers important data and support hummingbird research and conservation.
Hummingbird numbers at feeders always drop as spring migration ends and natural food becomes more abundant and appealing than even the best sugar water feeders. Flowers provide the same carbohydrates as sugar water, and flowers and other vegetation provide protein in the form of insects, essential for producing eggs and feeding chicks.
Most years I stop feeding hummingbirds by mid-June for a few weeks because a crop that bears as heavy an environmental cost as sugar does should not be wasted. This year I felt an emotional bond with one male and female visiting regularly who seemed to pay attention to me when I was at my desk, so I kept two feeders going. They didn’t come often while so much natural food was available, but did show up at least a couple times each day. When migration kicked in at the start of the month, I added a third.
Now, on August 26, I’m seeing a hummer visiting at least one of the feeders or my bee balm almost every time I look, and I often see chases. But that’s because migration is peaking—many of the birds here right now are passing through from further north. I still have some adult males, but they’ll soon be gone—after females lose interest for the season, the males stick around just long enough to fatten up. Adult females must finish raising their final brood before they can prepare for the long flight, and then they cut out, too. By early September, the only ones remaining tend to be first-year birds, mostly from further north. I keep my feeders out as long as any are still passing through.
The hummers up here are just about all headed down to the Gulf of Mexico. Back when I took ornithology, I learned something that wasn’t true, and like just about every ornithologist and bird writer, repeated the falsehood for decades—that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds fatten up when they reach the Gulf, and then fly non-stop across the water all the way to the Yucatán Peninsula. When you think about it, this really doesn’t make much sense—the tiniest orientation error or unexpected wind shift could make them miss that small target, adding hundreds of miles to an already arduous journey. In spring, a great many hummingbirds do take off from the Yucatán for our shores, but our Gulf shore is a much bigger target than the Yucatán Peninsula.
Now we realize that in autumn, when our hummers do reach the Gulf, the vast majority follow the land route around. They’re of course vulnerable to hurricanes and other bad storms, but most survive. [Read Sheri Williamson’s excellent discussion of this here.]
It's impossible for me to see a hummingbird without smiling. I love imagining that some of my backyard hummingbirds are even older than the record-holders. Keeping our world safe for them keeps it safer and brighter for all of us.
We have more hummingbirds than ever at our four feeders in Keene, NY(the result I believe of four breeding females each raising two broods of two each, plus a few males).
That is so cool that there has been banding of hummers that are 8 years old! I never would have guessed they live that long!!