 The Good Old Hummer Time I pick up the phone and hear a voice demand, “Where are my Hummingbirds?” I’m tempted to respond, “Well, I shipped them last week…” …but I don’t. It’s a typical and valid question for this time of year. The inquirer usually goes on to describe how, about mid May, the hummingbird feeder was a-buzz and now it has gone dead. At this point I usually go into my spiel about a wave of migrant hummingbirds coming through around the beginning of May. Those hummingbirds swell the feeder numbers, then pass through, and we are left with the hummers that plan to stay and nest. Most phone callers do not get excited about this first hummingbird shrinkage-event, partially because there is still much activity around the feeders. The males are battling with each other and with anything else that gets near the chosen feeder. When the mating ends, many of the noisy and rambunctious males drift away. I am told they move east toward the mountain flower meadows and make their way slowly southward leaving the females to nest. Whether this early mountain migration is true or not, I don’t know. It does however make for a pleasant idyllic mental reverie. After the males depart, the female Hummers are left to hover about the feeders and to construct a nest between sips. (Sipping isn’t a technically correct description of Hummingbird feeding; it’s more of a licking motion, but sipping sounds and looks like what they are doing.) Although hummingbird numbers have now decreased there are still enough females scurrying around to placate the feeder fillers, so I still do not receive the hummingbird phone calls…But then comes the time of incubation. Feeders that once bustled now hang forlorn and quiet as the grave. People call with a plaintive refrain, “Did I do something wrong? Have I killed my Hummingbirds?” Often the change is so radical that even I begin second-guessing myself. Did I clean the feeder with too much disinfectant? Did I clean the feeder with too little disinfectant? Perhaps the sugar was bad. Or worse, perhaps the ‘sugar’ I used was actually salt! And so it goes. The Hummingbirds’ milling squadrons are reduced to paltry once-an-hour visits. But fear not. Nearby, perhaps on a nest slung on a spruce branch, a female sits on two very small eggs. This task requires sitting immobilized for hours at a time. And, even after hatching the eggs, the mother Hummer has little time to think about feeding herself. Given time though, about the middle of July, everything changes once again. The young Hummers can fly, and the mothers can steal more time to visit the sugar-water feeders. I don’t know what mother Hummingbirds did with newly fledged young before sugar water feeders appeared. I imagine that the feeder lifted a great burden from the mothers’ well-muscled shoulders. In the old days the mother hummer would lead the young to various natural food sources. Now the sugar-water feeder is all the help she needs. After which she can probably sit back and yell out the occasional “quit hitting your sister,” or “don’t you think you’ve had enough?” When the young Hummers reach the feeders my phone often falls silent. I do still receive the occasional Hummer question but the questions lean more towards identifying “odd” Hummingbirds. Over the phone and without a picture such “odd” Hummers often remain anonymous. Most people know we get Calliope and Rufous Hummingbirds and can identify the male and female without much difficulty. But invariably something catches the attention of an inveterate Hummer watcher and prompts them to suspect the arrival of another species. I know it’s possible to see other species so I don’t discount it out of hand. Such a sighting happened to me the other day. As usual when a hummingbird arrives, I cast a casual glance in the direction of the feeder. The hummingbird hovered and my casual glance became a stare. I realized the bird looked different and my realization burned up a precious 2.5 seconds giving the Hummer enough time to depart. It returned. I lunged toward the window, and it fled. I stood by the window for five minutes and luckily the Hummer returned. It was a different species - a juvenile Anna’s Hummingbird! Between visits I read the characteristics of the Anna’s and noted the flash of red on a central spot on the throat, and the shorter beak, and the white behind the eye, and the long slender green-gray body with no tinges of rufous on the body. The cheek was dark and I decided it was this year’s nestling. I hoped the Anna’s would stick around but it failed to show up the following day, so I assumed it had left for good. That makes four species of Hummingbirds I’ve seen at Cariboo feeders and those sightings make me more sympathetic to feeder maintainers who call me insisting they have a new species at their feeding station. New species or not, Hummer season is indeed special. When I look over the snow covered yard in January I have a hard time believing that such flying marvels exist, and should the seasons continue to come ‘round again as they have in the past, the Hummers will return. It’s like an annual miracle that is no less amazing for having already been. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
