My backyard used to be a haven for winter hummers. So many hummers used to fight over it that I thought I'd found a magic formula for attracting and holding them. I shouldn't have been so cocky; a couple of years ago, the party suddenly stopped. I looked at every reason I could think of for the drought, but I finally had to admit that the presence of winter hummers had been nothing more than luck. With reports that this was a bumper year for some "western" hummers in Louisiana, I hoped my luck would change. Finally, a few weeks ago, my backyard got its first western hummer in a long, long time, a lone Black-chinned.
That Black-chinned made sporadic appearances, and I made sure to enjoy every glimpse I got of it. Soon after, another Black-chin showed up, and then a nice green-backed immature male Rufous arrived. Within days, another couple of Rufous arrived, and the Black-chinneds were pushed to the edges of the yard. I put up more feeders, and by this weekend, I realized I couldn't keep track of how many hummers were visiting my yard, and that most were immature male Rufous.
Hummingbird bander Dave Patton paid a visit yesterday, and set up his traps. Within a few minutes, we'd caught 10 birds, and at least one hummer stayed away from the traps. The totals were 7 immature male Rufous, 1 immature female Rufous, 1 immature male Ruby-throat, and 1 adult female Black-chinned. I know of at least 3 other Black-chinneds that have passed through the yard in the past month, so my yard has gone from 0 to over a dozen hummers in about a month and a half.
I won't take it for granted, now or ever again!
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