They’re back! Our hummingbird friends will travel a modest 20 to 30 miles per day, stopping to feed along the way until it reaches the White Mountains in late April and May.
By Mik Oyler
(Opening photo – A female Rufous Hummingbird – Jeanette Lovitch – Freeport Wild Bird Supply)
In the White Mountains, the last of the late snowstorms are a recent memory, giving way to warmer weather and remnants of spring skiing up in Tuckerman Ravine. Meanwhile, a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird in Central America has doubled its weight from .1 ounce to .2 ounces in preparation for one of nature’s amazing feats of migration: a 20-hour, 600-mile continuous flight across the Gulf of Mexico. While some of its fellow hummingbirds are lost at sea, it perseveres against storms and winds and avoids hungry predators, making it to shore along the Gulf Coast. Desperate to refuel, it finds fresh-blooming plants with nectar, as well as sugar water, in the plentiful feeders at residences of people eager to watch and help them.
Our little hero is re-energized, but his journey is far from over! Spanning the next four weeks, it will travel a more modest 20 to 30 miles per day, stopping to feed along the way until it reaches the Mt. Washington Valley in late April. He has worked hard to make it back first so he can claim his territory before other males arrive. He will spend the next two to three weeks fighting off other males until a female mate arrives. Small but fierce, he will even chase away other species—including large raptors—from his patch!
A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Jeanette Lovitch – Freeport Wild Bird Supply
DOING THE DANCE
It’s the big day … a potential mate with attractive brighter golden-green coloration and lacking the red throat, presents herself. He performs a spectacular “pendulum” or “U-shaped” dance. Beating his wings up to 50 times per second, he flies high and plunges down at high speeds, making loud buzzing sounds. Hovering in front of her and puffing out his iridescent red throat feathers, he awaits her confirmation of interest with a “mew” call and a cocked tail.
SUBMIT YOUR Sighting!
Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird website and app allows volunteers worldwide to submit data about the birds they see at any time and in any location. Millions of observations are recorded monthly and entered into a central database that is used by scientists, land managers, and bird watchers alike. www.ebird.org/submit.
All goes well, and they separate. He moves on to mate again with several other females. This may sound promiscuous, but reserve your judgment! This system is important for the species, as there are fewer adult males than females in a typical local population.
Meanwhile, our female is an equal embodiment of strength and resilience, as she completes the remainder of the homesteading and hatchling care all by herself, starting with building a nest from thistle, dandelion down, and spider silk, big enough to fit two pea-sized eggs—and usually on a tree branch 20 feet high. She incubates her eggs for two weeks, leaving only for a few minutes at a time to maintain the necessary warmth. Once hatched, she leaves to collect nectar, pollen, and tiny insects to feed her young for another three weeks before they fledge.
Wait, hummingbirds eat insects, you ask? Yes! They must consume twice their body weight in food daily, so to obtain essential protein, fat, and nutrients not found in nectar, they eat spiders, mosquitoes, gnats, aphids, fruit flies, and beetles by catching them in midair or picking them off foliage. And if you have seen a hummingbird attempting to feed on an inanimate object around your house, it is likely a recent fledgling exploring and probing at anything that looks like it might contain food, as it becomes more familiar with its new world and environment.
How to Attract and Feed Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds have the highest metabolic rates of any animal, roughly 77 to 100 times faster than humans and 100 times faster than an elephant. To sustain hovering flight, they maintain heart rates over 1,260 beats per minute, and must consume their body weight in nectar daily.
While the Ruby-throated Hummingbird population is stable in New Hampshire, like many other bird species, they are exposed to constant threats. You can help them through two primary means on your property: nectar-rich plants and flowers and nectar/hummingbird feeders.
Plants & Flowers
- Fill your yard with native flowering plants, vines, shrubs, and trees.
- Choose a variety of native species with different blooming periods to provide a consistent supply of flowers through the season.
- Minimize or eliminate the use of pesticides in your yard.
- Leave some small branches on bushes and trees to provide perches.
Feeders
- Use a red-, orange- or pink-colored feeder. Hummingbirds have highly developed vision and can even see ultraviolet light. They associate these colors with nectar-rich flowers to feed on.
- Consider a feeder with a built-in ant moat or an add-on moat to prevent ants from contaminating the nectar and creating a health hazard.
- Look for a feeder with a shorter tube or shallow basin to allow birds with shorter beaks to reach the nectar, make cleaning easier, reduce waste, and keep the nectar fresher and safer. Fascinatingly, the design of modern feeders has led to rapid evolution in hummingbird beaks, which have become longer and more slender to efficiently reach the sugar water.
- Fill the feeder with sugar water, made by combining four parts hot water to one part white sugar, boiled for one to two minutes. Never use honey, artificial sweeteners, or red dye; this is harmful to them.
- Place the feeder in a shaded location to prevent the solution from fermenting.
- Clean the feeder and replenish the solution every 2-3 days.
- Hang additional feeders out of sight from each other to prevent territorial aggression.
- Position feeders 8 feet high or do not install any feeder if you have outdoor cats (its top predator) in your yard.
- Install bird-safe window decals or tape to prevent strikes on nearby windows.
Last but not least, enjoy watching these magnificent birds!
AUTUMN EXODUS
As early September in the Mt. Washington Valley arrives, we turn our attention to apple picking, changing foliage, and keeping an eye out for the first snow on Mt. Washington. Our male Ruby-throated Hummingbird has had a successful breeding season and once again has bulked up, this time in preparation for his migration back south. Like in the spring, he will leave before the females, who are then followed by the juveniles, typically by October. Interestingly, their route is not simply a reverse of the spring, as many that traveled over the Gulf in the spring choose to travel through Texas and along the coast of Mexico to reach their wintering grounds in the fall.
Nature is predictably unpredictable, and the fall is an exciting time for hummingbird enthusiasts. While a few juvenile Ruby-throated Hummingbirds may depart as late as early October, mid-October is officially “vagrant season.”
The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only species that breeds in eastern North America, but is only one of 18 species that routinely inhabit the U.S. Likely impacted by warming temperatures, the fall has increasingly turned up vagrant hummingbird species, including at New Hampshire feeders, such as Rufous Hummingbird (2015, 2022, 2025), Calliope Hummingbird (2013), and Allen’s Hummingbird (2020).
These birds may have been blown off course by storms or have navigational errors, with many being young birds on their first migration. Hummingbirds are resilient and resourceful, but this time of year, finding a feeder that hasn’t been put away for the winter may be a lifesaver for them. While they often seek shelter from the cold and wind near human structures, such as under eaves or porches, their primary survival method is a deep, hibernation-like state called “torpor.” During torpor, they drop their body temperature from 102 degrees to as low as 54 degrees to conserve energy, and have been known to hang upside down seemingly frozen to a branch or feeder overnight.
Vagrants are exciting—but back to our protagonist, who has successfully returned to his winter grounds in Central America. He will spend the next few months in the tropical deciduous forests, citrus groves, scrub, and edge habitats feeding on the abundant nectar-producing plants and insects until the urge to fly north again to breed returns in the spring. While many only live one year, if fortunate, he will make his incredible journey back to the Whites of New Hampshire for another three to five years.
——-
Mik is an avid birder, a Mountain Birdwatch volunteer researcher, and an instructor at the Hog Island Audubon Teen Camp. Mik also serves on the Board of Directors of Mount Washington Valley Adaptive Sports, helping individuals of all abilities and disabilities to access recreational opportunities in the Mt. Washington Valley.
