Garden

[NickNack]

I am in East TN and haven't seen a hummingbird in about three days.  It makes me sad when they leave.  It's still in the 90's here (supposed to be 96 today) but is supposed to be in the 70's next week.  I'll leave my feeders up for a while though for the stragglers.

[suzykee]

Same here in northeren Ohio. I still have a feeder up too - for the straglers!

[Kachina624]

@NickNack. Maybe there's hope that we will actually have winter this year.  The birds know......

[BlueFinch]

I, atypically, had low hummingbird traffic all summer.  Just two, to three. Even so, it's a lot of work to keep feeders clean and refilled in the heat (I'm in central TX). Plus, I had to waste a lot of content.

Two weeks ago, I suddently had too many to count.  I had never seen anything like it. They were almost draining three feeders per day.  It was magical watching them, often feeding until it was almost dark. They were so intent on feeding that they didn't mind me being in the yard with my 90lb dog.  Their little tweets could be heard everywhere and I almost had one fly into my face.  

I gathered that they were migrating birds that just happened to locate my HB friendly yard.  With drought conditions in large areas of TX, they were hungry. It was a special gift, a joy to watch.

Then they began to taper off, when fueled up.  I'm now down to seeing just one little female visiting feeders.  By temps and appearances, it's still very much summer weather here, but they know better.  

It always saddens me when another cycle is complete and feeders are stored away, but I'll be glad to see the close of this unbearably uncomfortable summer. 

[Tinkrbl44]

I've seen one in the past week ....  in SoCal.   Anyone know where they migrate back to?

[Susan Louise]

We currently have 5 Ruby-throated here in eastern Nebraska at our place right now...4 juvie males and a female. The weather with all the rain has them hunkering down here which makes us happy to enjoy their company for awhile

[Venezia]

@BlueFinch- What a wonderful experience, having all those hummingbirds in your yard.

I'm in New England and my DH and I were saying the same thing about atypical low numbers of hummers this summer.

Like other posters here, I'm leaving my feeder up for a while, just in case some straggler needs to make a pit stop.  We're having unseasonably cold weather at the moment, but you never know.

[Susan Louise]

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@Tinkrbl44 wrote:

I've seen one in the past week ....  in SoCal.   Anyone know where they migrate back to?

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@Tinkrbl44  It depends on the species of the hummingbird. The west coast has many species. The midwest through to the east coast mainly only has one...the Ruby-throated. Since we are in the midwest, we have been lucky to have an occasional Rufus stop by our place while migrating

[Susan Louise]

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@Venezia wrote:

@BlueFinch- What a wonderful experience, having all those hummingbirds in your yard.

I'm in New England and my DH and I were saying the same thing about atypical low numbers of hummers this summer.

Like other posters here, I'm leaving my feeder up for a while, just in case some straggler needs to make a pit stop.  We're having unseasonably cold weather at the moment, but you never know.

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@Venezia  We will still get hummers through about the 10th-12th of October on average. The latest we had a hummer was on Oct 17th one year...so we usually keep our feeders out for 3 weeks in October

[Venezia]

@Susan Louise- I do the same.  I usually wait till the end of October and then figure there won't be any more coming through.