Saturday, 21 August 1999
Hummingbird hangout
David Sanders
The Arizona Daily Star
NOGALES, Ariz. - Jesse Hendrix's house is hummingbird heaven.
The retired schoolteacher gives daily doses of sugar water to up to 10,000 of the birds daily, one prominent scientist estimates.
That's more hummers than anyone has seen at any other spot in the United States, said officials of the National Audubon Society and the American Birding Association and several other experts.
His home has drawn ornithologists from several universities across the country. It has improved the science of hummingbirds and even sparked a mini-controversy about whether his feeders disrupt normal bird-flower pollination patterns.
At Hendrix's home six miles northeast of Nogales, bird feeders filled with blue, orange and red-colored sugar water dangle from mesquite trees, metal poles, a magnolia tree and bungee cords.
Birds dip into the trees, then zip from tree to feeder and from feeder to feeder.
Their tails gyrate except when they pause to sip on the colored sugar water. At feeders north of his home, the buzzing sound is constant and sounds like a field full of model airplanes.
``They are a fearless little bird, which is one reason I like them,'' Hendrix said this week. ``They're also friendly. And they're colorful, when the sun shines on them.''
``Staggering'' was the reaction of Susan Craig, a staffer for the birding association based in Colorado Springs.
``Mind-boggling,'' echoed Sheri Williamson, co-director of the Southeast Arizona Bird Observatory in Bisbee.
The 10,000-bird estimate came from Steve Russell, a retired University of Arizona ornithologist who has studied birds for more than 30 years and co-authored a guidebook to the birds of Southeast Arizona.
Russell has been banding birds at Hendrix's home since 1994. He based his estimate on the amount of sugar water that Hendrix serves the birds daily.
On his busiest days in late August and early September, Hendrix mixes 24 pounds of sugar with 12 gallons of water to make 13.2 gallons of sugar water a day for 130 feeders.
In a single year - 1996 - Hendrix provided daily meals for about 479,000 hummingbirds, according to Russell.
Like many passions, Hendrix's drive to attract hummingbirds started on a small scale.
His daughter gave him a feeder as a gift 11 years ago after seeing a hummer through a window at his home. That drew more birds, which caused Hendrix to buy another feeder, which drew more still.
For Hendrix, the birds are simply a source of relaxation.
``I really believe it keeps my blood pressure down,'' he said.
The 74-year-old retired government and social studies teacher never gave a second thought to birds until he retired from Nogales Public Schools in 1986. His passion until then was teaching.
Now, he watches birds mainly while feeding them and occasionally while sitting inside his house.
``I don't watch them closely - I leave that to the professionals,'' Hendrix said. ``Until two years ago, about all I knew was telling their front from their rear.''
The birds are there because the Santa Cruz Valley long has served as a major migration route for hummers, said Williamson, whose non-profit group is dedicated to southeast Arizona bird conservation.
Hummingbirds can live longer than 10 years, so it's possible that some who visit Hendrix's house this year could have first dropped in a decade ago, Williamson said.
``He's basically just built a Stuckey's on the interstate,'' Williamson said.
Each day, Hendrix rises before daybreak to remove a plastic cover he draped over the feeders the night before to keep thirsty bats away.
Tending to the birds takes one-fourth to one-half of Hendrix's day, seven days a week. In peak seasons, he checks feeders hourly. He refills most feeders with colored sugar water every three hours.
He changes dyes daily, so he'll know how long each feeder has been filled. Last Sunday, he was filling the feeders with orange colored water. The day before it was red, and the day before that, blue.
He doesn't allow the feeders to hang empty.
``The birds get discouraged if they go up here and nothing is in it.''
It is tiring work. In late September, when most birds leave for the winter, Hendrix is glad to see them go. When they return in mid-February, he's glad they're back.
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has taken hummingbirds from Hendrix's house for its hummingbird aviary. Ornithologists from universities in Alaska and Arkansas, and Calgary University in Canada, have visited regularly to view the birds.
Until biologists started banding hummingbirds at Hendrix's house and other spots in that area, scientists didn't know that the Santa Cruz Valley was a major hummingbird migration route, Russell said.
By banding Hendrix's birds, he has discovered that broad-billed hummingbirds replace their feathers at their southeast Arizona breeding grounds long before they leave for migration, Russell said. Previously, he said, the bird literature had long reported that those birds molted in Mexico.
Bill Calder, a veteran UA hummingbird specialist, said Hendrix could be disrupting the area's pollination cycles. Birds drawn to Hendrix's feeders might not be seeking nectar from and transferring pollen to flowers, he said.
``I would rather err on the side of being conservative and not mucking up something,'' said Calder, a UA ecology-evolutionary biology professor who has not visited Hendrix's house. ``I don't think it would be a good idea for everyone to do it, but to say it's for sure a problem, heck, I don't know.''
Russell disagreed, saying that few nectar-producing flowers bloom in Arizona's lowlands at this time of the year.
Williamson of the bird observatory said Hendrix's feeders could be doing the hummers a good turn. After they leave his place, the birds fly south over huge swaths of Mexican desert where ranchers have torn up natural vegetation - that once supplied the bird's food - to plant buffel grass for their cattle.
``If the birds can tank up on this side of the border, it may help them hold themselves together for the flight south,'' Williamson said. ``It's a stopgap measure.''
IF YOU GO
Where: To visit Jesse Hendrix's house, call at least one day in advance at 520-287-8615. He'll give you directions.When: Peak viewing hours are mornings until 10 a.m. and late afternoons until dusk.Hendrix will be playing host to bird-banding sessions on Aug. 28-29 and Sept. 4-6. Call if you're interested in participating.On TV: On Sept. 28, Hendrix and his hummingbirds will appear briefly in the last segment of David Attenborough's 10-part PBS series on birds. The show runs on KUAT-TV Channel 6 at 8 p.m. that day and repeats Oct. 2 at 4 p.m.
http://www.azstarnet.com/clips/humming.htm
10,000 HUMMERS??? WOW!
Incredible!
Excellent news article post, Darius !!! . . . . How truly exciting a read !!!!!!
I'm jes flabbergast'd .. and my mouth hangs open, in awe of only imagining .. the amount of the 'buzz' and the 'hum' .. there @ Mr. Hendrix's home!!!!!
Gotta be one fantabulous site (and sound!) to witness ...
And am definitely markin' my calendar for the upcomin' PBS program in Sept., also! Jes hope it airs on all of the PBS channels ...
Thank YOU, so much .. for sharing and posting this peice with us!!
- Magpye
All I can say is.......WOW!
The story was done several years ago so I wouldn't count on the listed PBS schedule. Check with PBS and see if they are running it again?
HAH!!! .. Well, I sure nuff miss'd that lil trinket of 'portant info (the date) - in your post, AND on the website!! .. duuble LOL's ..
Gettin' a mite bit spotty in my ol age, 'ey ? ... hee
Ohhh wellll, still was plenty 'nuff reason .. fer me to get a bit xcited for the feller, & the hummers !! .. HeeHee ..
- Magpye
WOW !!!
Amazing story. Thanks Darius for posing it, wouldnt that be something? to have all those hummers in your yard. It seems like a full time job for Mr. Hendrix.
i would love to go see it
Yeah, me too, Pebble. : )
google hummingbirds hendrix
One of the returns: http://birdfotos.com/brdwatch/rancho/rancho02.htm
John
Thanks, John. The photos of his house and the birds are great.
Unbelievable!!! Makes me want to get in the car and head out to Arizona.
Retired,, yeah right... LOL