Welcome the ruby-throated hummingbirds with nectar
Flying more than 20 miles a day, with wings beating up to 80 times per second, ruby-throated hummingbirds are headed to our neighborhoods from breeding grounds across the eastern half of North America.
Just 3 inches long and weighing less than a nickel, the hummingbirds seem to be as delicate as glittering glass ornaments. But they’re tough as nails.
They fly lightning fast around gardens by going forward, backward, up, down and sideways. Then they hover in midair. Their hearts beat 1,200 times a minute in flight, slowing down to 500 beats a minute when perched.
The majority of North America’s rubythroated hummingbirds will soon arrive along the Texas coast and inland to the Hill Country. Many will have flown from breeding grounds in places like Nova Scotia. A few others that bred in East Texas and locally around Houston will join the long-distance migrants congre
gating in our neighborhoods.
Males began showing up in July, followed by a few females and juveniles this month. But their numbers will peak between now and mid-September.
They’ll spend days or weeks in our gardens and parks while frenetically eating insects. It’s a temporary behavior called hyperphagia, during which the hummers will build up body fat to double their normal weight of 3 grams.
The hummers will accumulate energy-rich yellow fat in their body cavities and around their organs. They’ll use the excess fat to fuel a 35-mph nonstop flight covering 600 miles over the Gulf of Mexico to winter homes from Mexico to Central America.
A few hummers will circumnavigate the Gulf. Whatever their flight path, navigation requires toughness barely detectable in the pretty little pixies, except when they zip around our gardens. They’ll hover over flowers and at hummingbird feeders with wings whirring in a blur, only to dart off like miniature fighter jets to another feeding spot. Their rapid aerial maneuvers require energy from flower nectar and sugar water in hummingbird feeders. And they burn energy so fast that they must replenish it at least every 15 minutes.
Hummingbirds do not suck nectar or sugar water through their beaks like a straw. They instead extend and retract their tongues through their beaks up to 13 times per second to lap up nectar, somewhat like a house cat laps up water.
Install nectar-producing plants and hummingbird feeders in your yard, and you’ll likely be charmed by the sight of rubythroated hummers.