Report to the Hummer Club

The male ruby-throated hummingbird, flashing his colors. — Dan Pancamo/Flickr

By now, those of you who maintain nectar feeders for hummingbirds should be enjoying the pleasure of their company. Collectively, we are members of what I call the Hummer Club.

Except for the fact that these are strictly New World birds, you might think that tiny hummers were responsible for those persistent reports of fairies afoot in gardens of the British Isles. Imagine how plausible it might seem to cast a hummingbird — zipping around on a blur of fast-beating wings or levitating into the treetops — as an other-worldly sprite. They are zippy little things, often moving faster than the eye can follow.

I know many of you out there hoping for hummers, and others are knee-deep in the same. I’m totally envious of the guy who sent me a picture of a hummer literally eating out of his hand. Well, Hummer Club, here’s my little story of the season so far.

On April 30, I dug out my feeder, cooked up some nectar and rehung the feeder from my porch eaves, where it sits just outside the screen and at eye-level for those lounging at the porch table, a prime hummer-watching spot.

I finished my to-ing and fro-ing, my step ladder gyrations and my gourmet cookery by about 10 a.m. At 3:35 p.m., the first male arrived, flashing his ruby gorget and commenting in soft chitterings and squeakings on the first-rate quality of the dining. Gratification doesn’t get much more instant than this.

For the benefit of newcomers to the hummer business, I must add that it took a season or two before I could expect such a predictable return of my little pals. The hummer’s brain is, proportionately, the largest in the bird kingdom and this may account for their remarkable memory concerning where to get a free lunch. I’ve now had many years worth of migrants through the yard, and usually have nesters, too, which has to help.

The males are always the first to move through in mid- to late April, with the females following about two weeks later. A girl hummer’s love life is limited to brief and testy encounters with a mate, after which she resumes her solitary ways and raises young single-handed — no billing and cooing here.

I suspected early on that I had at least two females hanging around, which bodes well for the nesting season. One is so uncommonly loud (for a hummer) that I call her Chatty Cathy. Hovering at the feeder, chowing down, she’s as loud as a hungry finch. I can actually track her by ear as she flies around the yard, talking to herself all the while.

Female hummingbird on the nest. — ricmcarthur/Creative Commons

The other female is silent and shy, and more often than not will buzz off without eating if she comes to the feeder when humans are hanging around. She is, by default, Not Chatty. My suspicions were confirmed one morning when the two girls arrived at the feeder from opposite directions at the same moment — after a bristling exchange of indignant squeaks and tail flaring, they each flew off whence they came.

If a feeder alone isn’t getting you hummers, enhancing the habitat is the answer. Evergreen trees for shelter and deciduous ones for nesting are key, and natural nectar sources are probably more firmly imprinted in a hummer’s genetic memory than any plastic feeder.

So far, I’ve spotted hummers flitting among the old-fashioned bleeding heart and columbines, probing the still-unopened buds of the beauty bush and checking out the container plants. The feeder hangs between baskets of bright annuals, and later on I’ll have salvias, lavenders, morning glories, native honeysuckle and other garden goodies to tempt the hummer palate. While no one in their right mind would invite rampant jewelweed into the garden proper, this wild impatiens grows along my streambank, and is the hummer candy of late summer.

To attract attention to a newly hung feeder, tie on a bright red ribbon. Your solution of four parts water to one part ordinary table sugar needs no red dye, although reports that color additives were harmful appear to have been discounted.

Don’t be surprised if hummers desert your feeder for periods of time when the birds, especially the females, are out catching small bugs for dinner. A hummer does not live by nectar alone, but needs protein to produce and nurture the next generation.

This morning I saw another boy hummer come through, so maybe these cantankerous little birds will have an assignation in the spruce and I will have another nest to discover if I’m diligent about following the flight paths of my girl birds, Chatty and Not.

It’s amazing to think how these tiny birds get around. Breeding as far north as Canada, they winter each year in Mexico, Panama and the Caribbean, a trip some 2,000 miles each way. They are so small, a 10th of an ounce, that you could pop seven of them in an envelope and mail it with one first-class stamp — if seven hummers could actually get along, it might be a better way to go south than all that arduous wing-flapping, 55 to 65 times a second on average.

My hummerless friends would be only too glad if I would mail them a few of mine. Sorry, but I have only two selfish words for you: No way.