Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: Hummer friendly vines for the shade., 1 by HBJoe

HBJoe wrote:
Good afternoon, Flicker!
Ruby-throats are the name of the game during the breeding season. However, during the winter other species do spend the winter. We recently enjoyed a Rufus for two winters. My grand-kids had the opportunity to observe the banding process during the second year the bird was with us. They became totally enchanted. The littlest one, nicknamed "Tater-Bug" (barely age six), had the opportunity to release the bird. You can't imagine how the experience changed him.

Last winter, we were all so disappointed that "our" Rufus did not return. But we did have two Calliopes show up at almost the same time in late September. That mellowed the disappointment somewhat. One was an adult male and the other was either a first year or female. Both were constantly tormented by the much larger Ruby-throats. Efforts to contact several banders proved unsuccessful. One bird left after three days, the male endured the harassment for 5 days before he too moved on. I believe there are far more winter hummingbirds that we expect. People don't see them because they have been conditioned by a myth to take all their feeders down and don't continue to look for birds. We keep two feeders hanging all year long and have been rewarded a number of times. Many others have learned to keep the feeders hanging.

Bob Sargent, internationally known for his work with hummingbird migration, tells us that these western birds are showing up with increased frequency, particularly in the South-eastern states. Some time ago, these birds had an ancestor who had a mutation in their guidance system. The progeny of that bird carried and spread the same gene. As small populations of these birds migrate, they become established in completely new areas. Evidence from banding records indicate that many of these birds return year after year. One day in the near future, we will no longer refer to winter hummers as "vagrants." They will be known as "non-tropical migrants."