Aah, September, glorious September rolls in with cool mornings, brilliant sun and sparkling azure skies.
The rain and sun of late August have turned the landscape to an early summer green. No browning lawns, no falling leaves. Will summer once again last until October?
Migratory birds are on the move. Swallows line the wires. They flock with kith and kin and fly south. Mixed battalions of blackbirds rise up in a swirling cloud from fields only to descend again to be hidden in the furrows. Warblers call softly from behind the leafy curtains edging the yard. This morning, a yellow-throated vireo calls just as the sun is rising: “Three-eight, three-eight.”
HUMMINGBIRDS
These days, the most obvious bird prepping for the journey south is the ruby-throated hummingbird — a jewel, a gem, a wee sparkling bird that shimmers iridescently in the sunlight. Since we are graced here in New England with only one species of hummers, so called from the sound of their rapidly-beating wings, identification is simple. Recently, rufous hummingbirds have appeared at feeders here in early fall, all having lost their way along their trek from the west coast to Mexico. No mistaking the similarly-sized rufous (3.75 inches) for a rubythroat, with its shorter beak and orange-y breast.
Twenty other species of hummingbirds live and breed in our southwest and west. A few Central and South American species have been making inroads along the borders of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. If you are on a project to see all the world’s hummingbirds found only in North and South America, be prepared … a majority of the 350 plus species live in Central and South America and are primarily non-migratory. The Old World is populated with different kinds of nectar pollinators—the sunbirds—no relation to our hummers.
I can never figure out whether we’ve had one or two pairs breeding. But in the fall, we always have four defending their flower patches and positions on the two sugar water feeders. They are amazing to watch, as ephemeral as soap bubbles, rising up and disappearing into a bush. There it is, glittering in the sun, and then poof it flies up and away. If you are quick enough, you’ll find the perch, and see the tiny bird on a wire, a branch or atop a stiff-stemmed weed.
Sometimes the female adult will have a second brood, laying eggs in a different nest before the first brood has fledged. Adult hummers are solitary creatures. From an ovo, young hummers are on their own. Neither Mom nor Pop lead the way for that first migration. It’s all instinctual, or at least it better be, as they head south toward western Mexican and Central America, their wintering grounds. The hummers may appear to be miniature mechanical fliers, but do not confuse them with being helicopter parents!
‘HOVER AND HUM SHOW’
Every morning from the kitchen window, I tune in to the “September Hover and Hum Show.” This year, the feeders on the patio are above the half-barrels spilling over with petunias, Magellan zinnias and mandevilla, all hummer faves. They pop up and down from sugar water to nectar and back again. If another bird dares to enter the flower patch or land on the feeder, the first hummer will lose its “strained tolerance’ and aggressively fly at the supposed intruder who zips away to the dwindling phlox or the withering beebalm to feed.
Hummers do not suck up sugar water or nectar. The long, forked tongues lick droplets of these tasty treats that travel up the tongue by capillary action. If you watch carefully, you may even see one swish the tongue around its face as if licking its lips of sugar.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds are amazing to watch, as ephemeral as soap bubbles, rising up and disappearing into a bush, writes columnist Clellie Lynch.
DAN LYNCH
And they must consume one and a half times their weight — approximately two-tenths of an ounce — every day. Flower nectar is more important to these avians than flower color. Hummingbirds are more important to the flowers than insects, since they pollinate in the rain.
Not only are hummers exquisitely beautiful, they are incredible aerialists, able to fly backwards, forward and straight up and down and side to side and reach speeds of 30 miles an hour. You try it!
These birds are relatively tame and the early explorers came back from the New World naming them for speed, flight, size and method of feeding. My favorites are the Spanish zumbadores (combination of humming and zooming); French oiseau-mouche (bird-fly, because it was the size of a fly) and the Portuguese beija flor (kiss flower, what the bird does from dawn to dusk).
HEADING SOUTH
Soon these tiny bulked-up birds with bulging nectar bellies will head south, usually one at a time, although there have been occasional reports of a handful traveling together. Off they will go, following the blooming flowers. Migration has sometimes been defined as short-term opportunities in habitats that cannot support a year-round population. Our ruby-throated hummingbirds fly along the coast of Texas and Mexico to hunker down for the winter amid many continually blossoming tropical plants and shrubs.
Most will be gone here by the first week of October. Then it will be a winter wait until that first one hovers at the kitchen window on May 6.
Clellie Lynch is a regular Eagle contributor.
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Publish date : 2024-09-04 03:00:00
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