The miracle of hummingbird migration
At daybreak, a half-dozen ruby-throated hummingbirds swarm among the flowering plants in our garden to begin their day with a healthy dose of energizing nectar.
I suspect they’re combining flower nectar with a nutritious breakfast of insects. Kind of like people gulping down a slug of coffee for morning zest combined with eggs and bacon for sustenance.
OK, you’re drinking orange juice and coffee with a healthy bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.
Hummingbirds drink nectar and eat insects all day long. They have to. How else could they fuel itty-bitty bodies weighing no more than a penny while their hearts pound 1,200 times a minute as they buzz around flowers. Their heartbeats drop to 250 times a minute only when they stop briefly to perch on a twig.
They’re up at dawn and don’t roost until dark. They whiz about all day at lightningfast speeds while zipping up, down, backward and forward. They helicopter over flowers or hummingbird feeders on wings beating at a blinding speed of at least 50 times a second.
Even more surprising is the fact that the hummers are migrating from distant breeding grounds throughout the eastern half of North America. That means basically all of the approximately 7 million rubythroated hummingbirds will pass through our area now until November.
They’ll linger for weeks at a time to double their body weight with fat reserves to fuel an nonstop flight 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to winter homes from Mexico to Central America. A few hummers may circumnavigate the Gulf overland to Mexico.
A few others will spend the winter in regions along the Texas Coast. But the bulk of hummers showing up in neighborhood flower gardens are just passing through and won’t come back until spring.
Males usually come through beginning in July and are followed by females and juveniles from August through October. Their numbers will increase dramatically by mid-September and will gradually level off through October.
Put up hummingbird feeders and fill them with a ratio of one-part sugar to four-parts water. Never take down feeders under the ridiculous notion that hummingbirds won’t migrate unless you remove the feeders. Hummingbird migration is unstoppable.
Besides, having feeders continuously available may attract western species like rufous hummingbirds that migrate to Houston for the winter. At least one of those birds arrives in our yard every year.