Anyone else have an unusually large number of hummingbirds this year?

[Larry Caldwell]

Ours seem to be leaving earlier. Suppose there's any wives tales around about earlier migration meaning colder or snowier weather?

I suspect it has more to do with available food in nature. If they can feed themselves on natural food, they don't need a feeder.

I have heard that hummers hitch a ride in the feathers of migrating geese, but don't know if that's true. In any case, it's a little early for geese to be moving south, though I hear it's been a little nippy in the upper Midwest.

 

[Bob Thielman]

Yep: tons of 'em. They've been crazy active for the past week or so, probably getting ready for their unbelievable journey south.

 

[sixdogs]

Yep: tons of 'em. They've been crazy active for the past week or so, probably getting ready for their unbelievable journey south.

We're convinced migrating birds from the north stop here for our feeders and that some birds return in the spring. Our birds are leaving now and in maybe a week or two we expect to get swarms of travelers. It happened that way last year and sure surprised us. What amazing creatures.

 

[dragoneggs]

It would be cool if there was a way to somehow tag the hummers so one could recognize the ones that frequent and return.

 

[sixdogs]

It would be cool if there was a way to somehow tag the hummers so one could recognize the ones that frequent and return.

We saw birds last year that we feel are the same birds back this year. Unique colorations and that sort of thing. A little hard to tell but not so if you have a widow feeder three feet from the kitchen table. Some birds were the locals that seemed to stay here all summer and some were travelers that we saw late in the season and were likely just passing through. We feel they returned in the spring and stayed.

My wife's persistence with feeders, even when few birds showed up, had to be the reason we have so many birds. It took a few years but paid off.

 

[dragoneggs]

We saw birds last year that we feel are the same birds back this year. Unique colorations and that sort of thing. A little hard to tell but not so if you have a widow feeder three feet from the kitchen table. Some birds were the locals that seemed to stay here all summer and some were travelers that we saw late in the season and were likely just passing through. We feel they returned in the spring and stayed.

My wife's persistence with feeders, even when few birds showed up, had to be the reason we have so many birds. It took a few years but paid off.

My wife is better than me at recognizing not so familiar faces... I think she not has a photographic memory but also eyes in the back of her head. I can't get away with anything!

 

[Larry Caldwell]

We're convinced migrating birds from the north stop here for our feeders and that some birds return in the spring. Our birds are leaving now and in maybe a week or two we expect to get swarms of travelers. It happened that way last year and sure surprised us. What amazing creatures.

That's what I saw when all the rufous hummers left our place. We had a huge number, at least half a dozen at a time around the feeder all day long, then they all vanished in a single day. I had no idea hummers flocked like that. 40 hummers at a time would be a daunting prospect for any predator, since hummers attack larger birds like hawks and drive them off. They can fly circles around anything in the sky, and those little beaks are sharp.

 

[goeduck]

My resident Annas Hummers are feeding on a regular basis as they will all winter.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Our hummers have gone south. Only saw 1 today. Maybe we will get some stragglers coming thru on their way south from northern New England and Canada.

 

[sixdogs]

Our hummers have gone south. Only saw 1 today. Maybe we will get some stragglers coming thru on their way south from northern New England and Canada.

We only saw a few today and figure the others are on the way south. Same thing happened last year followed by a week of no birds and then a swarm came in from probably your way. We had maybe 10 days of lots of birds and then they were gone.