Thankyou brushlady when I found the nest i was sitting in my lawnchair nearly right under it, and kept hearing a buzz sound by my head and some chattering, I was like whoa big bug! I looked nearly straight up and she was going into the nest. I gave her all the space she needed and snuck some pics.
Yes Burd_Fotos, I don't know if you are just lucky or talented or both, but your pictures are fantastic. This is one I have from last year. I was visiting friends in Utah who didn't know they had hummers until I came. The only red thing we could find to use for a feeder was a Santa Jello mold. I prepared some nectar and put it on the deck rail. Within 5 minutes we had a visitor.
I wish I could see a hummer nest!
Well, I have a zillion important things to do, so naturally, I wasted an hour getting maps and making dots where people have reported not seeing hummers (red report) and where they have seen them (green report). I mapped it as best I could on a map of Hurricane Ike's path. Almost all of you who said that you normally see hummers this time of year and are not seeing them at all, were in the path of Hurricane Ike. There were a few exceptions with a red report in North Carolina, a red report in Georgia and one in New Mexico.
Six red reports were right around me where Hurricane Ike made landfall. Two were in Illinois in the path of the storm. One in Indiana appeared to be a little south of the storm and was countered by another green report of hummers nearby.
There were three green reports near the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, but I can't tell for sure if Dallas was in the path of the storm. It looks like it was right on the Western edge of it.
There were three green reports in Texas west of the storm near Austin and San Antonio.
One green report did appear to be in the path of the storm in Missouri although on the eastern edge of the storm.
All the other green reports (14) were in areas unaffected by Hurricane Ike (eastern US).
I'm not a scientist, and there really wasn't enough data to know for sure, but I'm inclined to believe that the hurricane had something to do with this year's hummer drought. Some hummers who usually live in these areas or migrate on that path may have been killed. Others may have decided to take another route. Maybe when they came across the gulf and saw that Galveston and Boliver etc. were wiped out, they went further west or east. Of course, it could be some other reason all together especially since there was one big cluster of red reports right around me and the other cluster was just south of Lake Michigan. Even though both of those spots were on Ike's path, that doesn't mean that Ike caused both. See the whole dotting process was just dumb!
My area of the state is definitely void of hummers, so we offended them somehow!
Elphaba that is an extremely fascinating theory. I am in NJ and have seen them this year. Not as many, but I have seen them. Perhaps my numbers were diminished by the storms while they were migrating, or they couldn't make the trip due to lack of food along the way. What a domino effect!
I was trying to poke holes in my theory. I figured that there were lots of hurricanes that affected the United States last year and that if hummers were still present where those hurricanes had traveled, then my theory would be weakened. Instead the search has strengthened my theory!
The red report in New Mexico seems to be where Hurricane Dolly curved back up and caused flooding and several deaths in New Mexico.
The red report in North Carolina is where Hurricane Hanna went through. That hurricane went through part of South Carolina too, but the reports that I had in S. Carolina were in the western half of the state and not in the path of the storm.
Are you getting weirded out yet? The only one that I can't explain is the red report in Georgia since there were two green reports south of it.
You want to hear something else weird. The hurricane folks have a measure of hurricane strength called IKE (Integrated Kinetic Energy). Hurricane Ike had the highest IKE score of any hurricane. Talk about living up to your name!
IKES!!! :)
The hurricanes must have blown all of them right into roses yard.
That is an interesting report though. Odd how weather affects so much around us. Sometimes scary though.
Hard to figure out why of these things...2007 our first full year here...during fal migration we had about 3 days of good size groups...10 or so. And late passerby until the end of October. So last year I got ready for the same thing to happen ...and it never did. We had 1 or 2 here and there and then none after the 15 or so of October.
The last couple of days I have had 2 males coming regular thru the day.
Not had a sighting in a couple of weeks. I expect the fall migration will be good this year though since I have so many more plants.
We are up to 3 males sighted now!
I have a male thats been here since Sunday. There either are more or he is one thirsty little bird because there is quite a bit gone today.
Things are back to normal here, but then, so is the weather.
Elphaba you may very well be on to something. I have always had a few hummers. I usually have the ruby throats. My neighbor saw one the other day so I put out my feeders with fresh food. I have not seen one yet. I have bird baths, drippers and anything a hummer could want. I guess Ike delt us a really dirty hand. I do not have a picture of a hummer from my home in 2009. I have them from the hill country and at Lake Livingston.
I'm encouraged that your neighbor saw one. I still haven't seen any, but I was making fresh sugar water this morning, walked outside to move the hose and forgot about the sugar and water on the stove. I didn't remember until I smelled the smoke outside. My house still stinks of it. I was using a teflon pan too, so the fumes are toxic. I'm sure that one day, people will look back on teflon-coated cookware the way that we now look at arsenic in face powder or lead in paint and gasoline. Oh well, what I go through for these darn missing hummers!
My hummers have all of the sudden reappeared and we are back to the buzzing and fighting that we had before. I had put off ordering another feeder because they had vanished and now they are back......and I am so glad. I don't know where they went but I am happy to have them around again.
I had 1 hummer for a short time about 6wks ago. Nothing till the last couple days when again I've had 1. It looks
to be a female so I'm hoping she's making a nest nearby; sure would like to see some more.
I have one female ruby now visiting, still trying for a picture..she's really small though, well its seems that way lol.
