Discover why you should leave a hummingbird feeder out this winter.

hey it's heather from the nature center i'm so excited that you're joining us for the virtual hummingbird celebration a partnership between warner park nature center friends of warner parks and metro parks of nashville davidson county i'm excited to introduce my friend cindy routledge of southeastern avian research cindy is going to be sharing with us her adventures banding wintering hummingbirds yes i said wintering she's going to give us some reasons for leaving a hummingbird feeder out in winter and then share her adventures banding black chin rufus and even a mexican violet-eared hummingbird enjoy lots of times i get questions when should i take my feeder down grandma told me that i need to take my feeder down at halloween or by october 15th because if i don't take my feeder down those hummingbirds are going to stay and they're going to die they're going to succumb to the cold well i'm here to tell you that grandma was wrong no amount of food will keep your birds here during the winter unless they decide to stay because they can make a living and what i mean by when i say make a living is that they can find nectar and they can find insects and so on and so forth but most birds will depart when their hormones tell them to go and they will head to down into the yucatan peninsula however if you choose to leave your feeder up you might be one of the lucky few who get one of our western birds we have 16 species of hummingbirds that call the north america home and 15 of them are west of the mississippi and those are the birds that are known as our winter hummingbirds if you choose to leave a feeder out you might get one of those vagrant western birds and it was long thought that these birds might be lost or that they were sick or that there was something wrong with them but by banding them and following them for near 40 years now we've discovered that there's nothing wrong with these birds that birds are efficient and if they can come to tennessee or alabama or mississippi or louisiana and they can find nectar and insects why go all the way down in the yucatan peninsula and chance that migration journey so you can leave your feeder up if you choose um and you might get one of these birds this is called a rufus hummingbird he is our most frequent winter bird here in tennessee he is known as one of the feistiest of the hummingbirds he's a little bit smaller than a ruby throat and he commutes annually between mexico and alaska he makes one of the longest flights relative to body length of any bird in the world so you might you might have him at your feeder if you choose to leave up a winter feeder or you might get one of these this is the second most frequent visitor and it is called a black-chinned hummingbird it's breeding territories the western u.s northern mexico and down into british columbia and they look young and females look exactly like your ruby throats and it's not until we get them in our hands that we can identify them as black chins so if you think have a ruby throat what you think may be a ruby throat at your feeder because you've left a feeder up and it's after november 15th i certainly want to hear from you because it would could be one of these black-chinned hummingbirds we you could also have any one of these birds as well the bird in the left upper corner is an allen's hummingbird it breeds in a narrow strip of coastal california and southern oregon next to it is a lovely bird called a broad-tailed hummingbird and this guy breeds in the mountains of california to western texas and mexico below the allens is a calliope he's uh she's our smallest hummingbird in north america and they breed in british columbia washington idaho oregon nevada california and east into wyoming utah and colorado the next one is a broad-billed hummingbird and you'll notice that one has a nice bright red bill that adult male and it breeds in southeast arizona and throughout mexico and finally the one next to it is called an anna's hummingbird and that breeds in southern british columbia southern alaska and the baja of california into texas and it's quite a big bird but any of these you might have any of these birds in your yard because all these birds have been banded in the state of tennessee currently there are just under 300 winter hummingbirds that have been banded since november of 1999 when the first one was banded in chattanooga each one of these little yellow dots represents where a winter bird was captured and banded and recorded for history and you'll notice that it's sort of around the metropolitan areas but that's mostly because that's where we give our talks that's where we do our festivals and that's where most people leave up their feeders but i encourage you to leave up a feeder put it outside where you eat look first thing in the morning where you eat breakfast or out your bathroom window if you're going to check the weather because that's when you're most likely to see a winter hummingbird because these winter hummingbirds act very different than our ruby throats because it's usually only them and they will have a roost usually a conifer tree or something with where they can get in and cover at night and that's where they'll sleep and first thing in the morning they need to feed when they come off that roost and they will come to your feeder and that is more likely the time you'll see them then or right before dark and if you see one of those hummingbirds i certainly hope that you will call southeastern avian research and let us know that you have a bird and then we would love to come to your house ban that bird and record that bird so it becomes part of our winter research study so if you have choose to leave your feeders up and you have a hummingbird after november 1st and before march 15th i'd certainly love to hear from you

Channel: Warner Park Nature Center

Views: 17,099

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Id: 9OY1BbGUAe8

Length: 7min 13sec (433 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020