Hey all you Hummer Lovers...the Rubies are heading north and are moving fast.
Here's a link to the current migration map at Hummingbirds.net:
http://www.hummingbirds.net/map.html
Looking forward to your pics and wonderful stories about your Ruby encounters!
The pics below are (obviously) not from this year. We won't see any hummers till early May. :o(
This year, I saw my first arrival on April 1st. Just right on time when my honeysuckles blooms.
Welcome Kim! You're so lucky to have seen Hummers already. Is that a native Honeysuckle? It's beautiful.
Hoping to see lots more pics soon.
I'll try to capture some pics. when opportunity available. The Honeysuckle must be one of our native ones, but I'm not sure which.
I hope you can place the hummingbird among the flowers. Pics. taken through window, sorry they're not the best.
Oh cool and yes I can see them. They look like little females. Do you get your female Rubies first? Our males come first. Sometimes the females don't show up till a couple of weeks after the males.
Really love those Honeysuckles.
I heard my first Hummingbird this past week. It was zinging North. I put out my feeder but haven't seen any visitors. The ones zinging North in April are usually Broad-tailed, the most common in Colorado. I don't get any to stick around until May, then I get Black-Chinned. It seems like more time is spent studying the Ruby Throat in the eastern U.S. - and I admit migrating across the Gulf is impressive. But I wish someone would study the Broad-tailed. They arrive in the Mountains before things have greened up (No flowers! Seriously!), and while the temperatures are still dropping below freezing at night. Yet they thrive.
The main reason most of the tracking is done on Ruby's is because they cover over half of the country so there are a lot more of them than other types. It makes it easier to track them.
Journey North also tracks the Rufous, which is one of the hummers my brother gets lots of. He's a lot further north than you are and very high in the mountains. Do you see any Rufous Hummers?
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/humm/index.html
I plan to hang at least one or two feeders today, even though we won't see any hummers for two or three weeks. That way if there are any early ones they'll have something to eat.
All we have are Daffodils and a few other bulbs right now. and most of the flowering trees and shrubs in the neighborhood haven't started blooming yet.
Rufous are one of the species where numbers have decreased and need monitoring. I am out on the Prairie and do not get as many Hummingbirds as they do in the Mountains. In a good year, I see 4 species: Broad-tailed in April and Sept/Oct as migrants. Black-chinned May-Aug, nesting (I haven't figured out where). Maybe Rufous in August. And maybe Calliope in late August early September. Calliope are extra tiny. Rufous are extra fiesty & territorial. A few years ago I had two Rufous for several days, they spent most of their waking hours fighting each other - except when they would perch together to rest! I have seen one try to pick a fight with a House Finch, which ignored it. I was originally told that only male Rufous come through Colorado & that they do not nest here, but I have had people in the Mountains swear they have both male and female all summer. That would be a change from when I was a kid (50 years ago) & spent my summers in the Mountains - we only saw them the last 2 weeks of July, but we saw more of them.
This message was edited Apr 17, 2016 6:52 AM
I know the Rufous are pretty aggressive from the ones I've seen at my brother's house, but because he gets so many hummers, eventually they all settle down and share the feeders...even the Rufous (for the most part).
I titled this thread Ruby-throated Hummers mostly because we've had one every year, but please feel free to post info and pics on all the varieties you see. Many of the threads have been less active since all the changes. Hopefully as both old and new members see the new threads the activity will increase.
For my records:
Heard first Broad-tailed of the year on April 12th
Saw first Black-chinned of the year on April 23rd.
I think that may be slightly earlier than average.
MY HUMMERS ARE HERE! MY HUMMERS ARE HERE! WHOOPIE!!!
They finally showed up on May 11th...over a week late.
Welcome back little ones!
Oh yesssss! NAN, I'm happy for you that they're finally back. Ours has been around since early April, but it's increasingly difficult for me to get pictures since I've been quite busy working in the garden.... Also, more ants, sweet-ants (Argentina ants) I think -- are abundant this year. They are found everywhere, in the ground on tree branches, and of course the nectar feeder. Sadly I only put out the feeder with tap water instead of sugar solution because of the ants invasion problem. :((
On the other hand, we've a lot of blooms in and around the garden for those beautiful flying-jewels.
Thanks Kim! Also, your blooms are beautiful!
Sorry about your ant problem. Many of our feeders have ant moats, but for the ones that don't, I found Stokes Ant Moats last year at Menard's for only $2.99 - and they work great. I even use them on the Oriole grape jelly/oranges feeders.
Just out of curiosity I checked Menard's website. They have them, but I wasn't able to find out shipping costs. We bought ours right at a Menard's store so there was no shipping. Do you have a Menard's?
Anyway, I posted a link just so you could see what it looks like. I'm sure other places carry them since they're made by Stokes, but I don't know the prices.
There are also lots of really simple designs for making your own ant moat. One of them uses the top of an aerosol can (like a spray paint cap). It even has the same shape as the Stokes Ant Moat.
https://www.menards.com/main/grocery-pet/bird-wildlife-food-accessories/bird-feeders/hummingbird-oriole-feeders/stokes-select-reg-ant-moat/p-1444432378507-c-7891.htm?tid=3352365251127122215
WOW, WOW...while I was typing this post my husband called me over to the window to show me that our first Indigo Bunting of the year has arrived!!! I'm jumping up and down!!
