RUNNING OUT OF SUMMER

I’m pretty sure that the hummingbirds should have all left by now.  I can’t imagine how they do the flight to Mexico on their tiny little wings – do they find a certain airstream and just coast?  I know they fuel up on sugar water for a couple weeks in August at a rate that keeps me busy just trying to stay ahead of the demand, but honestly, how far can that take them?  I know that Mother Nature is full of miracles but her hummingbird life/migration is right up there with the best of them.

My best guess is that we had four or five nesting pairs this year – a person has to guess, there’s no way you count anything that moves that fast and erratically.  Sometime after the first week of May the males show up to claim territory, followed shortly afterward by the womenfolk.  For a few weeks the feeders are busy and then they disappear.  For many years I worried that I had done something to offend them, or that the sugar water had not been up to snuff, but then one day I discovered that they were all in the carraganas – apparently hummingbirds consider carragana nectar quite the treat.

As time goes by these tiny birds come and go at my feeders, it all depends what’s in bloom.  They become scarce when the alfalfa is in bloom and it was pretty quiet on the deck when the pea crop across the road was blooming too.  The experts say to grow trumpet shaped flowers to attract them so I have lots of morning glories, hollyhocks and honeysuckle although I see them visiting flowers of all descriptions.  With the energy levels that they have to maintain to keep humming along they can’t be too fussy about their diet, and they take in protein too – God bless anything that eats bugs!

The peak of hummingbird summer is August when the juveniles join their parents at the feeders.  The term for a group of hummingbirds is a “charm”.  During any other month of the year I would agree that these pretty little birds are charming, but come August when they are fueling up for their trip south they are the opposite of charming.  They are feisty and aggressive.  They are angry and warlike.  They are greedy and obnoxious.  They are noisy and dangerous.

Seriously: you have to watch or you could lose and eye.

We have three feeders on the go and for a while I was filling them daily, which is amazing because they spend all their time and energy chasing each other away from the food.  They chirp at each other, not in the usual friendly way a bird chirps, but in a threatening, angry way.  In their bright colours and battle stance I see miniscule Samurai warriors, ready to battle to the death – pointlessly, I might add – a typical scene would involve five birds fighting over three feeders with four stations per feeder.  It never seems like anyone gets to drink but since I do have to keep making more juice there must be some kind of truce called to allow for nourishment.  Google says that they tend to double their weight from 3 grams to 6 before they head out.  I wish I had that kind of magic – to look the same, even if my weight doubled!

Google also says that the males are the first to leave; I noticed that things slowed down a bit the third week in August: there were 20 or so, then maybe 10, and then for a while 5, then 3.  It’s not like they come to have their passports stamped before they leave – they just come and go at their own pace.

And then one morning the deck was quiet and I thought summer was officially over.  There were still two feeders with a little left in each one.  If I had taken them down right away I might have never realized that there was still one female left.  Slowly she is finishing off the rest of the sugar water while I dither about whether I should take the feeders away, or does she need the last of it to fuel up?  Again I consulted Google and learned that they tend to be solitary migrators, leaving on their own individual instincts and flying solo, making Mother Nature’s hummingbird miracle even more impressive in my books.  As of today the feeder is empty and will not be refilled.  If she stays longer she will have to exist on flower power; I have no control over that.  I have to admit though, I’m worried about her.

I hope her “time to go” alarm goes off and she is soon a thousand miles south of here.  I hope no hurricanes or other catastrophes keep her from getting to Mexico.  I hope she makes it back here next spring and I can help her raise her 2020 family.

Heck, best case scenario, I hope I can visit her in Mexico this winter.  Isn’t this the time of year when humans start feeling their migration instincts kick in?