Feisty rufous hummingbirds return to area
Ihave never thought that it might be nice to be a hummingbird before now. But lately I find myself watching them mingle, fly away, mingle again, circle back later for another drink and chitchat with their peers. It all looks positively inviting and free. Don’t get me wrong, I like being a human, and I realize that daydreaming about being a bird is a little crazy. And now that the super feisty (some say bully-like) rufous hummingbird has returned to New Mexico, being a hummingbird is a bit less attractive.
The rufous spends much of its time on the move. They are long-distance migrants. Rufous hummingbirds travel nearly 4,000 miles from breeding grounds in Alaska and northwest Canada to wintering sites in Mexico. They travel north up the Pacific Coast in spring and return by the Rocky Mountains in late summer and fall. When we see them from early July into September they are just passing through, following the flower highway of the Rocky Mountains back to Mexico. Wave after wave of birds is moving through our state right now and are certainly making themselves known. One of the bossiest hummingbirds in North America, the brilliant orange male and the green-and-orange female rufous hummingbird are relentless attackers at flowers and feeders.
If the rufous has taken over your feeder, it can be helpful to add another hummingbird feeder and place it out of sight of the first one. Make it hard for this aggressive hummer to guard more than one feeder at a time. Often, this gives your other hummingbirds — the broad-tailed, black-chinned and maybe even the calliope — a fighting chance.
According to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, rufous hummingbird populations declined across their range by almost 2 percent per year between 1966 and 2014, resulting in a cumulative decline of 62 percent. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of 11 million with 100 percent spending some part of the year in Mexico, 52 percent in the U.S., and 48 percent breeding in Canada. The species rates a 13 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score. The rufous hummingbird is a U.S.-Canada Stewardship species and is on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List, which lists bird species that are at risk of becoming threatened or endangered without conservation action.
To keep the rufous and other hummingbirds coming to your feeders, be sure the sugar water in your feeder is fresh. Fresh nectar is the key to consistent hummingbird activity. In June you may have noticed a dip in hummer activity at your feeder when the mother hummers were sitting on the nest. But now babies are fledging, and the rufous has returned.
The next month or two is peak time in New Mexico for hummingbird activity. Make sugar water mixtures with about one-quarter cup of sugar per cup of water for feeders. Food coloring is unnecessary (and may be harmful); white table sugar is the best choice. Change the water before it grows cloudy or discolored and remember that during hot weather, sugar water ferments rapidly to produce toxic alcohol. Experts recommend changing sugar water every few days.
Anne Schmauss is the co-owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Santa Fe and she loves to hear your bird stories. She is the author of For the Birds: A Month by Month Guide to Attracting Birds to Your Backyard and has written the For the Birds column in The New Mexican for more than 11 years.