Where are the hummers? If you’ve been offering sugar water in hummingbird feeders this spring and summer, you may have noticed a slacking off of activity. Feeders that were swarming with Rufous Hummingbirds just days ago now appear neglected.
Where have they gone? Simply answering, “headed south” doesn’t begin to tell the fascinating migration story of these hyperactive buzz bombs.
These tiny birds, the weight of a nickel with wings just half the length of your index finger, migrate for thousands of miles every year. It is hard to get our minds around this feat; not surprisingly, folklore suggested that hummingbirds migrated on the backs of geese. Some bird lovers assumed migratory hummingbirds caught prevailing winds. But unlike larger birds, hummers can’t soar. Every inch of their migration is accomplished by flapping those tiny wings. While hovering at your feeder, their wings beat 44 times a second.
The flowers that nourished the hummingbirds when they flew north last spring through the Pacific Coast lowlands have long since faded. Consequently,the birds can’t return the way they came.
Eons ago, migrating hummers found an alternate source of energy for their trip south. Many Pacific Northwest hummers travel east to the higher elevations of the Rocky Mountains. There, they find summer flowering alpine and sub-alpine wildflowers that supply the nectar they need. During July, August and September, hummers follow this flower highway south through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and northern Mexico.
Along the way, they stop for one to two weeks at flower rich meadows to refuel. When the male hummers come across a patch of flowers, they defend it from invading hummers, as adamantly as they do their breeding territories here on Mercer Island.
Finally, our Rufous Hummers settle into wintering territories in central Mexico. Like people who spend the winter at their favorite Mexican resort year after year, hummingbirds return to the same wintering grounds.
In January, male hummers begin their northward journey. The first migrating hummingbirds arrive in the Puget Sound lowlands as early as the end of February. Some early-arriving males continue farther north but others stay and establish a breeding territory. Their arrival here corresponds with the first salmon berry blossoms, one of their favorite native buffets.
Females follow a few weeks later. Their entrance stimulates the males to commence courtship, aerial displays punctuated with buzzy chattering. Females impressed with the dramatic swooping flights will stay and nest nearby. After copulating, the males continue to defend their territories, but leave all nest building and tending to the females.
A hummingbird’s nest is, I believe, one of nature’s wonders. First a mother hummer gathers spider silk, which she weaves around the fork of two branches creating a framework for her walnut shell-sized nest. She then collects tufts of lichen, moss and bits of bark and tucks the materials into the web of filament using her delicate bill-like a needle. Camouflaged with the color and texture of the branch, only she is likely to notice her brooding vessel.
She lays two white eggs the size of peas, leaving them only to nourish herself. Soon she will begin to feed the hatchlings with regurgitated protein-rich insects. Within six weeks of her arrival — as early as late May — she leads her fledged youngsters out into the world to consume flower nectar and perhaps to visit your feeder.
Once these juvenile hummers find your feeders, they will hover and feed regularly. If papa is still in the area he will try to scare them away, initiating chases and scolding.
By June, our gardens are a-buzz with hummingbirds sipping on delphinium, columbine, sage, nociotinia and other plants. It seems these sequined jewels should stay and enjoy the rest of the summer with us. But they are in tune with a larger plan; they know their trip south depends on the timing of flowers hundreds of miles to the east.
The once ubiquitous darting and buzzing fades as the Rufous Hummingbirds head east on their circuitous, 3,000-mile southbound journey. First the males, then the females and finally the juveniles slip away. The recently hatched young birds will follow the exact route of their parents and winter in the same location as their ancestors. And they do it all by themselves without parents to show them the route.
Amazing, I’d say.
Frances Wood is author of “Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West..” She can be reached at wood@whidbey.com.