Watching for Hummingbirds

This post is based on one that originally ran on May 29, 2013, on the blog of New Jersey Audubon's Scherman Hoffman sanctuary. The NJA blog was significantly overhauled since then and the archives were deleted. However, I was able to keep a copy so this can again see the light of day.

I hear like you see — like that hummingbird outside that window, for instance.
– Ray Charles

This morning (Sunday) a Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovered over the feeder briefly, then flew into the nearby apple tree. It did not return while I sat on my porch with my binoculars.

Another year's backyard hummer. (Margo D. Beller)

For my yard, this is typical. Every year the hummingbirds visit infrequently in late spring, then more regularly in late June into July when the female, which does all the work feeding the young, stops for a sip of sugar water so she has the energy to find insects to feed her chicks. 

When I hang the seed feeders, I know a host of different birds will come to eat all year long. But the sugar water feeder is meant for only one type of bird that visits over the summer, and the food can go bad quickly in the heat. I have a pole in a shady area but I can't see the feeder from the kitchen, unlike the seed feeder poles. 

My brother-in-law, noted below, has no trouble drawing these tiny colorful birds to his feeders. But even he has been known to complain about the "waste" of having to dump nearly full feeders when the sugar water has gone bad:

It is dusk in New Hampshire. It is raining and unusually cold for late May and I am sitting on my brother-in-law’s wide, covered porch.

As it darkens, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird comes to one of the two feeders hung from a support for the grape vines. It perches and takes a long drink of the sugar water that will help keep it alive over the expected cold night.

A second, slightly larger hummer arrives. Despite two feeders being out, this one chases the other away because this is what hummingbirds do, they battle each other for food and territory. These little birds are tough. The first one leaves and the second takes a long drink, then perches for a while until it gets almost too dark to see. Then it flies off to roost in a nearby sheltering willow.

(Margo D. Beller)

I am always taken aback when a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, looking more like a bug than bird, flits by me. They are fascinating to watch, the only bird that can fly backwards, bright green back, long bill and, if a mature male, a deep, red throat. John J. Audubon referred to the Ruby-throat as the “glittering fragment of the rainbow.”

Hummingbirds are so small - they weigh the same as a penny - and so colorful. In the U.S. they have interesting names including Broad-billed, Broad-tailed, Anna’s, Allen’s, Calliope and Magnificent. But in New Jersey, the hummingbird you’ll see 99% of the time is the Ruby-throated. Go walk in the woods wearing a red hat or bandana and you might draw one to you, checking out what kind of flower you are.

People love to watch hummingbirds. They put out red feeders with sugar water (1 part sugar to 4 parts water) to feed them. They plant flowers for them – preferably those that are red and/or trumpet-shaped (yellow jewelweed is a favorite, if you happen to have a stream or river along your property). They make documentaries about them. There’s even websites to track the Ruby-throat’s northbound migration.

One year I was in New Jersey’s Great Swamp, crossing a bridge over a brook, when I was buzzed by a hummer that flew to a tiny nest made of lichen and spider webs at the tip of a thin branch hanging over the water, a good defense against predators. This was a female: Once the male has done his part, he’s gone, frequently heading south as early as July, leaving the female to build the nest and raise the brood alone.

New Jersey Audubon’s Scherman Hoffman sanctuary has a feeder attached to the bookstore window so those inside get a close view of the feeding bird. It is nice to be inside, perhaps talking to sanctuary director Mike Anderson or one of the volunteers, and suddenly have a brilliantly colored male hummer appear out of nowhere. Very little deters a hungry hummingbird, as the ones I saw in New Hampshire reminded me.

When I see a hummer at a feeder, its whirring wings beating thousands of times a second, I appreciate the great lengths it has gone - and the dangers it has faced - to make it here from central and South America.

In his book “The Big Year,” Mark Obmascik gives a harrowing account of northbound migration over the Gulf of Mexico, from the point of view of a female Ruby-throat. Like all birds the hummer eats and eats and eats, then takes off and flies nonstop over the water, burning fat supplies as she goes until she can get to land to eat and rest. Many don’t make it. The one in the book does. Read it and I guarantee the next time you look at a hummingbird you will be awed.

If you want to attract hummingbirds you can create a garden with the right type of flowers. Trumpet Vine is a hummer favorite, and so are other native plants including Beard Tongue, Wild Bergamont and Bleeding Heart. If you have a wet garden, there’s Fire Pink and Cardinal Flower and its blue cousin Lobelia.

The nice thing about these flowers is that besides hummers you will also draw butterflies – another long-distance migrant that is tougher than it appears. These plants evolved along with native birds, insects and wildlife. Putting these in your garden is like buying heirloom tomatoes with their strange colors and textures and juicy taste instead of the bland orange tomatoes used for fast-food sandwiches. Natives are just more interesting, and so are the birds and insects they attract.

Hummer at a friend's feeder (Margo D. Beller)

Here is Audubon on hummingbirds and native flowers:

No sooner has the returning sun again introduced the vernal season, and caused millions of plants to expand their leaves and blossoms to his genial beams, than the little Humming-bird is seen advancing on fairy wings, carefully visiting every opening flower-cup, and, like a curious florist, removing from each the injurious insects that otherwise would ere long cause their beauteous petals to droop and decay... Its long delicate bill enters the cup of the flower, and the protruded double-tubed tongue, delicately sensible, and imbued with a glutinous saliva, touches each insect in succession, and draws it from its lurking place, to be instantly swallowed. All this is done in a moment, and the bird, as it leaves the flower, sips so small a portion of its liquid honey, that the theft, we may suppose, is looked upon with a grateful feeling by the flower, which is thus kindly relieved from the attacks of her destroyers.

Makes you want to go native and plant a few Fire Pinks, doesn’t it?

I get a grateful feeling about hummingbirds, too.

Waiting for Rosie

When May comes, there are many things for me to expect. Mother's Day. Daylight extending to 8 pm and later in New Jersey. Our wedding anniversary.

In the bird world, early May is when we can expect to see a rose-breasted grosbeak (or five) at the house feeder.

Rose-breasted grosbeak pair, May 2013 (RE Berg-Andersson)

"Almost time," MH told me today. "The feeder is full? I hope they come while we're home."

MH is particularly eager to see these large birds because they are colorful, he knows what they are without my telling him and he likes to take their picture. The male is striking, with black and white wings and back, rose coloring on the breast and a large, pinkish bill for crunching seeds. The female is equally striking, despite the dull brown designed to hide her (and the nest) in foliage. However, she has distinct white eyebrows and brown streaking on the breast.

This grosbeak is a relative of the black-headed grosbeak, a western bird, and the evening grosbeak usually found in the north. The evening grosbeak looks like a goldfinch on steroids and that is the same feeling I get when I look at the female rose-breasted grosbeak because she looks like a much, much bigger version of a female purple finch, including the white eyebrow.

The first year I kept the house feeder filled into May, we had two females followed by five males. It was quite a sight to behold. Since then, I've found these birds usually arrive in our part of the country in early May, although occasionally in late April. (I've only just started seeing reports in the New Jersey bird lists today as I write this, the last day of April.)

2 males showing how they got their name. (RE Berg-Andersson)

There have been times when I have heard the grosbeak before seeing it. It has a sweeter, faster, slightly higher in pitch song than a robin. It usually catches me off-guard, particularly if I am hearing other birds in the woods. You have to pay attention. It will sit and sing for a long time, then fly off and you'll hear the song from another direction. If you're lucky, there will be two males "battling" in song, filling the woods with sweetness. They'll hang around the yard as long as the feeders are out, but can more reliably be found in my favorite hiking areas.

There are many other migrants passing through that are almost as colorful although many don't sing as well. Thrushes are passing through including the wood thrush, of which Henry David Thoreau said, "This is the only bird whose note affects me like music." One early morning in New Hampshire I walked in woods and heard five birds' flute-like songs, seemingly one per tree. In their midst was the higher, more ethereal sound of the hermit thrush. A thrush-like bird, the veery, has what sounds to me like an electronic song that can sound eerie in the woods. 

Three on the feeder, 2013 (RE Berg-Andersson)

And then there are the warblers, which don't really warble at all but buzz in unique patterns that can help you identify them, presuming you can see them high in trees or low in the brush. These birds don't hang around my yard but stop maybe a day to eat on their way north to more suitable habitat.

For now, we wait on the rosies. 

Stakeout!

When I was a kid, I'd watch (in black and white) the daily 4:30 (pm) movie on over-the-air TV, the only kind we had back then. The movies would be cut up to fit into 90 minutes including commercials. One type of movie I enjoyed was the gangster film, usually with Jimmy Cagney or Humphrey Bogart in his pre-"Casablanca" days.

"Black-headed Grosbeak male" by K Schneider is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Usually, there would be one scene where the cops (or the feds) would be in a car or van outside where the gangsters were holing up, waiting for someone to arrive or depart. This would be the "stakeout" scene.

Recently, I was part of a stakeout. It didn't involve criminals but one particular bird.

The black-headed grosbeak is a bird of the west. Like its relatives the evening grosbeak and the rose-breasted grosbeak, this bird has a large, thick bill for crunching seeds. A male, like the bird seen above (not the bird of this stakeout), had been reported at the feeder of a house not that far from mine, as the crow flies.

Whenever an "accidental" bird shows up, it makes me wonder how that happened. Was it caught up in the recent strong winds and blown too far east? That is most likely. But who really knows? What is known is that once the bird was reported, birders came running to the house. The owner, who was kind enough to publicize the bird's sudden appearance at his feeder, allowed people to walk up his driveway and wait for the bird to appear. From what I gather from the number of the eBird reports I read, quite a number of people did in the first weekend.

I waited until mid-week, once I determined how to get to this particular house in the hills of Morris Township, NJ.

I arrived with one man as several people left. The bird was coming at 45-min. intervals and had left 10 minutes before, we were told. We walked up the driveway to find a couple sitting on folding chairs. They had seen the bird but were staying because they had driven all the way up from Forked River, about 35 miles away, and wanted to see more.

Roseate spoonbill, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

This is the first thing I learned about a stakeout: bring a chair. Luckily, the woman wanted to stand and I wound up in her chair for the next hour and 10 minutes. Others showed up as we sat and tallied the other birds in the yard: purple finches, house finches, robins, titmice, among others. Two men had cameras on tripods supporting very large and long telephoto lenses. I can understand them wanting a record of a rare bird sighting. One man said he had come up from Metuchen, not as far as Forked River but not close by either.

I have mixed feelings about seeing these accidentals. While it is nice to see these birds close to home, I wonder what happens to them next. Usually it is only one bird that arrives and many times it is a juvenile. It is on its own in a strange place and won't be mating. One hopes that if it survives it will use the maps in its head to get back to its usual territory.

However, now I don't have to go west to see a black-headed grosbeak, just as I don't have to go south to see a roseate spoonbill or white pelican or to Europe to see a northern lapwing.

When the grosbeak arrived, it was high in an oak tree, eating seeds. When I saw it from below I thought it was a robin at first, until I saw the white on the wing, which a robin lacks. I pointed it out and everyone hurriedly trained their cameras or binoculars on it. Unfortunately for my neck and the photo people, the bird stayed high and did not come to the feeder where it would've provided a striking picture. I watched it for 10 minutes until I could take no more of the pain in my neck. I thanked the man for his chair and he thanked me for being first to see the bird.

I took my leave even as others were arriving. The bird was seen for the rest of that week and into the next weekend. Now, according to what I see on the bird lists today, it left as suddenly as it appeared. My hope is it flew to a more hospitable environment and will give other people a chance to see something wondrous.

Free Day

Thanks to computers and the Internet, we know about storms days before they strike. This isn't always a good thing. It meant that MH, former Boy Scout, was anxious to get in food supplies days in advance. It meant I cooked enough food so I could have things that only needed to be warmed on the stove top in case we lost power. It meant taking money out to pay the plow guy. In my case it also meant being angry about the inadequacies of this house and of me.

After a relatively snow-free winter, we learned of a snowstorm that would hit last night. We were expecting the worst - six inches of snow followed by an inch of ice and then a drop of 30+ degrees to freeze it all.

I am older now and not enamored of being in the road show of "Frozen." There's a reason why Florida is known as God's waiting room - no shoveling although you do have those pesky hurricanes every summer.

Jan. 20, 2019, pre-plow guy (Margo D. Beller)

But here I am in New Jersey. I woke and looked out the front window and saw it was not as bad as predicted and the town plow had already been through. What was 3 inches of snow last night - the totals had been lessened as we got closer and closer to the actual event - was now 2 inches or so of slush. I went downstairs and opened the back door to push some of it with my shovel. Heavy, as expected. I thought of our 38-foot driveway, mandated by town code, and I thought of MH and me pushing this heavy stuff with our assorted ailments.

I called our plow guy. He seemed surprised to hear from me. But he knew, as I do, that the forecast is for the temperature to fall from a relatively balmy 40 degrees F to about 6 overnight. It will be enough for MH to push stuff off our walkways and for me to check on the feeders I left outside overnight. (I am now certain any self-respecting bear is safely resting in a cave. In effect, that will be what I do for the better part of today and tomorrow.)

Before the storm, MH and I had done as much as we could while we still had power. So today is a free day, free in a sense that my usual Sunday chores are done and, once the shoveling part is done, I can use the day for myself. Were I a younger, more foolish person, I'd be out in the field with my binoculars. I know there are many who are outside now, whether with binoculars or skis. Instead, I will be writing and reading or watching the feeder birds.

They have been coming at a rapid clip. I will smooth a path through the slush to the feeders, clear the slush off them and then withdraw. At least in my yard, they will be fed during the freeze. I remind myself that even if we lose power for a day or so because of frozen tree limbs falling on the power lines, we will survive. The birds, meanwhile, aren't free to relax and must hunt for what food they can find.

Tweeting the Birds

We recently had two days of heavy rain and so I kept the feeders indoors because too much water can rot the seeds and then they are useless. After those two days I put the three feeders (two with sunflower seeds, one with suet) out and watched them from my kitchen.

When the snow is thick, food sources are thin aside from feeders.
(Margo D. Beller)

For a long time there was no activity. Then a white-breasted nuthatch came to the house feeder, then a couple of titmice. Then nothing. A white-throated sparrow appeared on the flood wall and then flew to the base of one feeder pole to look for dropped seeds or scratch at the ground. Later, I would see jays fly to a seed feeder, chug down a few seeds and then fly off to trees to cache them in some hiding place for later eating. Then, a male cardinal flew in. Eventually a flock of house sparrows and house finches arrived en masse at the two seed feeders.

How did they know food was available? How do birds communicate that knowledge? I am no scientist but I have some theories based on years of observation.

Chickadee investigating the house feeder. As it darts to
and fro with seed, it will attract the attention of other
birds hungry for seeds - or for feeder birds. (Margo D. Beller)

Theory 1: The birds remember where there are food sources. If they don't find the feeders out one day, they come back and look again later that day or the next. In my yard they will find the feeders out most days until summer comes, when there will be plenty of other food sources.

If they find no food, they must seek it elsewhere. Birds must eat to survive and in winter they can't hang around the yard in hopes something may turn up. That also includes the hawks that know where there are feeders drawing the smaller birds they eat for their own survival.

Theory 2: A big, bright bird, be it a noisy one like a jay or a quiet one like a cardinal, is hard to miss. So if other birds are flying around the area and see that bright color at a feeder, they follow it, sorta like being followed on Twitter.

White-throated sparrow watching the activity at
the feeders. Soon it will fly below
and pick up what other birds drop. (Margo D. Beller)

Theory 3: Speaking of tweeting, some birds are very vocal. There's the shrill "Thief!" call of the jay are the softer "dee, dee, dee" of the chickadee, the sharper variant of the titmouse and the "hank hank" of the white-breasted nuthatch. Other birds hear the calls and investigate. It's the same reason why, when I find a flock of titmice in the woods, I try to look at as many individuals as possible in case something different is flying with them looking for food. That way I've found myrtle warblers and gold-crowned kinglets foraging with the titmice and white-crowned sparrows with their white-throated cousins.

Theory 4: Birds communicate in a way we humans can't do ourselves or possibly understand.  

Likely it's a combination of all the above. Among each species during the breeding time the birds communicate which area is their territory, sing songs to attract mates or call to their young. But hunger is the main driver at this time of year. When there are few insects, birds must rely on weed seeds or those in feeders. Birds spend a lot of time and energy looking for food and in harsh winters many will die. So when they find food, whether they mean to communicate that information or not, the news gets around.

My job is to provide food and alert the birds so I can continue to hear their tweets.