Incoming!
It’s always a race to get ready, even when you know they’re about to return. Hummingbirds traditionally show up in our yard around May 6, that first really warm morning when you feel spring with every sense you have, every breath you take. When there’s suddenly an extra magical something in the air that makes buds swell and flowers burst into bloom. That’s when the ruby-throats appear.
If I don’t have the nectar out there waiting for them they hang in the air in front of the porch, at the exact height the feeder was the summer before, demanding with their body language that I get my act together. Talk about a guilt trip!
I had lots of warning this year, starting with a very special email on April 21. “I miss reading your articles in our local newspaper,” Pat Brettell wrote, and my heart immediately melted. She still had my address! It’s been a year and a half since the papers folded, and I sorely miss hearing from readers, with all their nature stories and questions that used to pour in.
Pat didn’t disappoint me. “Hummingbird season is coming close and I’m concerned about feeding them. We’re moving May 20th after 25 years in this house, and I’m not sure the new family will continue. Do you have any advice for me? Should I put out my feeders?”
What a good question. I went straight to my most trusted source of bird wisdom, Dennis, and told him about Pat’s problem. He thought for a moment, then advised that she put them out in any case. Ruby-throats just returning need a good energy surge after their endless flight, 800 km nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico, then on up the continent to Canada. By the third week in May, when Pat and her husband move, lots more flowers will be in bloom for them to nectar on, so hummers won’t be left in the lurch.
His answer made good sense to both of us, Pat and I, and we wished each other well. I told her I was glad she was the one moving, not me—what a hassle!—and thanked her for the reminder about ruby-throat arrival, promising I’d pass on a heads-up to substack readers.
Next step was reaching out to my photographer friend Larry Hubble for hummingbird pictures he’s taken during birding trips we’ve been on together. Larry not only came through with a stunning assortment, he shared current mapping on an app he has, showing where ruby-throats were being reported, alarmingly close to the Canadian border already. Even more motivation to get the feeders out, scrubbed and filled with nectar—one cup white sugar to four cups water, brought just to a boil and left to cool.
I hung our newest, flashiest feeder out the very next day, which happened to be T-shirt weather. That same day a neighbour reported seeing the first garter snakes, one big, one small, in a sunny corner of the yard. Big female and smaller male, Dennis stated when I told him, and snake spring fever, cause for excitement all around.
So we’re ready for ruby-throat return this year, with fuel waiting for tiny, weary birds that flew all the way from Mexico, wings flapping in a figure-eight pattern about 53 times a second. They migrate by day and fly low, stopping to feed in flowery locales, wanting to drink half their body weight in nectar every day.
Friends on the other side of the Rockies are keeping their nectar feeders topped up for rufous, Anna’s, black-chinned and tiny Calliope hummingbirds, which migrate up the West Coast. Most of the 366 species of hummingbirds don’t bother to migrate, but stay year-round in the tropical Americas, many inhabiting specialized niches and pollinating flowers they actually evolved with.
Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards, straight up and down. They’re famous for the brilliant colours and iridescence on display when their feathers catch the light. Those on a male’s crown and throat are often most spectacular, body parts he tends to show off during courtship flights in front of females, who definitely go for gaudy.
I LOVE how they hover in front of the window and look at you like…”REALLY!” I’m ready here in the Pacific Northwest!
Fabulous article. I have been feeding the ones who winter in Victoria since one demanded food during a period of snow 2 years ago. Sadly, I have to move too in a few months and I will hope whoever moves in - or one of the kind neighbours - will take over. The hummingbird always brings joy to me and they appear often to connect!❤️❤️