Sep 02

Hummingbird Fun

By Brian Cunningham Birds, Hummingbirds 4 Comments »

Late-summer is a fun time to watch hummingbirds. It is prime migration and my window-mounted hummingbird feeder has been quite popular. The birds are emptying it almost faster than I can keep it filled.

In fact, the hummingbirds are battling over the feeder. They have spent hours chittering at and chasing one another. They perch in the spruce trees to either side of the window almost like they are playing Red Rover or Kick the Can. When one bird approaches the feeder, another will try to chase it away. A third will try to sneak in for a drink, while a fourth dives in to take its place.

I spent a bit of time one evening patiently waiting by my window with my iPhone to get some up-close snapshots. It was a challenge, with all the chasing, for a bird to sit long enough for a photo. Of course, I loved every minute of it.

There was one juvenile male Ruby-throated Hummingbird that I was able to photograph (seen above). He is still growing into his adult plumage. He has some spots on his throat that will eventually turn into a beautiful red gorget. There is also a cute white dot in the middle of his green forehead.

I’m enjoying the hummingbird fun before they have all migrated south for the winter.

What’s happening at your feeders?

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Aug 15

August Almanac

By John Schaust American Goldfinches, Birds, Chickadee, Hummingbirds, Nighthawk, Titmice Leave a Comment »

Man, does time fly by or what?!

It’s almost mid-August and summer is waning all around me. It seems like spring migration was in full swing just yesterday.

Now the sights and sounds of late summer are all around. Hummingbirds are thick at feeders and adult goldfinches are being relentlessly harassed by their hungry juveniles. The serenading cicadas and katydids are trading their day and night shifts in earnest and Snowy Tree Crickets are keeping impeccable timing with their buzzing calls. Monarch Butterflies occasionally float by in a southerly direction and shorebirds are again being marked on local birders’ checklists.

While I hate to see summer fading, this is one of the most exciting times to be out in nature, especially since this year’s record hot temperatures have finally subsided to a more bearable level.

Bird populations are at an all-year high. Trees and other plants are laden with fruit, seeds and nuts. Interesting insects and spiders are everywhere. Fields will soon be ablaze with goldenrods and asters.

Migration is just beginning with shorebirds and a few hawks leading the way south. Chimney Swifts are gathering in large communal roosts and Common Nighthawks are joining forces as they prepare to head for South America. Chickadees, titmice and nuthatches are becoming more active at feeders as they start to hide seeds away in preparation for the cold weather to come.

The changes happen quickly and hopefully I have learned my lesson from this past summer. Time does fly by and Mother Nature waits for no one, so I better get outside to enjoy it now before winter sneaks up on me, too.

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Aug 05

Hummingbird Highlights

By Brian Cunningham Birds, Hummingbirds 2 Comments »

I answer a lot of the nature questions that people send to our “webmaster.” There have been some very interesting hummingbird topics in the last few weeks.

Someone from New Jersey wrote in about a “weird looking hummingbird.” It turned out to not be a hummingbird but what is commonly referred to as a hummingbird moth. These moths are the size and shape of a hummingbird, have clear wings that seem to move like a hummingbird’s and they flit around flowers in the day time looking for nectar.

Someone in Ohio saw a creature that looked like a hummingbird but had the dull gray coloration of a moth. After some investigation, it was determined that it was a hummingbird; however, it was like a color photo that was switched to a black-and-white version.

A person in Colorado contacted me to about the possibility of seeing a Calliope Hummingbird at their feeder. They are not common in Colorado during nesting season; but, they are common during migration. Guess what? It is migration time for Calliopes in Colorado. The person was super excited to have Calliopes coming to their nectar feeders.

Another person reported an Anna’s Hummingbird in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this past spring. Perhaps a spring storm pushed it off course and moved it farther East than the Anna’s normal breeding range. I didn’t think anything of it after that. After talking with that same person this week, the Anna’s is still hanging around.

Have you seen any interesting hummingbirds or interesting hummingbird activity lately?

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Jul 22

Inspiring the Next Generation

By Brian Cunningham American Goldfinches, Bird Calls & Songs, Birds, Eastern Towhee, Gray Catbird, Hummingbirds, Indigo Bunting, Pathways for Kids Leave a Comment »

I recently spent the morning with a group of budding naturalists. There were 18 children ages 9-13 taking part in a Junior Master Naturalist day camp program. Our topic was birds and birding. Wow! They were quite eager to learn.

Each child had a copy of Backyard Birds (part of the Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists) and a pair of binoculars. After learning about their books and binoculars, we hit the birding trail. What a fabulous time of exploring with our ears and eyes.

We heard and saw the Gray Catbird ‘meowing’ in the thicket. American Goldfinches flew overhead calling out their favorite snack food; ‘potato-chip’. The Eastern Towhee was in the woods telling us to ‘drink-your-tea-he-he.’ The all-blue Indigo Bunting was politely singing his lunch request, ‘pizza-pizza cheese-cheese please-please thank you-thank you.’

We got to see the sparkling red gorget of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird while he perched in the open taking a break from all his foraging and territory protection.

And as many birding hikes are not all about the birds, one of the sharp-eyed, curious kids spotted a fawn quietly bedded down two feet off the trail in extremely dense brush.

All in all, a most successful learning endeavor.

Many people begin sharing their love of nature in their own backyard. Master Naturalist programs for adults and youth are taking that love to a whole new level. These programs are designed to bring together natural resource specialists with learners to foster an understanding of local plants, water, soils and wildlife, and promote volunteer service in local communities. Just do a ‘master naturalist’ Internet search to see if there are programs in your area.

How are you inspiring the next generation to learn about nature?

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Jun 10

Close Encounters of the Hummingbird Kind

By Brian Cunningham Birds, Hummingbirds, Nesting Leave a Comment »


You don’t often get to watch hummingbirds up close for any length of time because they are so small and always on the move. That is why it is so much fun to see hummingbirds perch at feeders to take a break or even have the rare treat of seeing one on the nest.

For the last three years a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird has been a regular visitor to my hummingbird feeder at home. At least, we like to think she is the same bird. You know when she is visiting the feeder when one of the kids calls out, “She’s back!”

Our feeder is in the middle of our living room picture window. She shows up in the early morning for a drink and disappears for a while. Her afternoon and evening visits are when she stops and rests a while on the feeder’s raised perches. It is so much fun to watch her up close for extended periods.

While birding in Texas this spring, I had another exciting close encounter. A female Black-chinned Hummingbird (very similar looking to Ruby-throated Hummingbirds) was sitting on a nest about 10 feet high on an open tree branch.

What an amazing site! She was just out of reach of my iPhone camera; but, I was able to use a spotting scope and digiscope some pictures with my iPhone. That is the picture shown above.

Hummingbird nests are not often seen; let alone with mom sitting on the blueberry-sized eggs. They are typically eye-level or higher in a tree. When they are close to eye-level, like the one I found, they are often overlooked because they are so small and well camouflaged. The golf ball-sized nests, often camouflaged with lichen, tree bark or flower petals, can be easily mistaken for a knot on the branch.

Have you had a close encounter of the bird kind? Feel free to share them in our comments section.

Apr 01

No April Fools – It’s Time for Hummingbird Feeders!

By John Schaust Birds, Hummingbirds, Migration, Uncategorized 3 Comments »

Another one of my favorite spring rituals is rapidly approaching.

It’s time to retrieve the feeder from the garden shed, buy an extra bag of sugar and dig the nectar bottle out from the back of the cabinet. My Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will be back in town any day now!

I have been jealously tracking its invasion of the southeastern states for the past month by viewing a very cool web site (Journey North) that uses citizen reports to map out the Ruby-throated Hummingbird’s migration.

It tells me that they are getting close! And according to my records…they are right on schedule!

For seventeen years I have gone through the ritual of hanging my nectar feeders up on April 1st in hopes of glimpsing my FOY (first of the year) hummingbird. Some may say it is foolish…but I have always been rewarded with a sighting within the first 10 days of the month.

Bird banding studies have shown that hummingbirds are creatures of habit. They have been found returning to the same nesting territory and migrating along the exact same route year after year. Some have even been recorded visiting the same feeder on the same date during multiple migrations.

So I figure it would be foolish not to put my feeder out now.

It sure wouldn’t be nice to pull an April fools trick on a hungry hummingbird that is making a return trip through my yard expecting to find a feeder!

I would love to hear your FOY hummingbird sightings and how early you put up your feeder in your location. Please click the Leave a Comment » bar at the top right corner of this page and share your stories.

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Nov 19

Costa Rican Bird Feeders…Who Knew?

By John Schaust Birds, Hummingbirds, Woodpeckers Leave a Comment »

It is still hard to believe…I just spent 10 days birding in Costa Rica!

It was my first time there and it truly became the trip of a lifetime that I was fortunate enough to share with my wife and a great group of Wild Birds Unlimited franchise store owners.

Birds, birds, and more birds! Toucans, trogons, motmots, hummingbirds, tanagers and many others…hundreds of new species!

It was a totally new birding experience for me, but with an element that still reminded me of home. Who knew that bird feeding is alive and well in Costa Rica?

Every lodge we stayed at had numerous feeders and they became the focal point of our birding efforts at various times throughout day.

Hummingbird feeders there are outrageously busy! There were dozens of different and brilliantly colored species, most of which we would not have seen, or been able to identify without watching the feeders.

Platform feeders loaded with fruit brought amazing birds so close that even the most inexpensive camera (like mine!) could take National Geographic style photographs. And who knew that tanagers and Acorn Woodpeckers would feed on cooked rice?

Take a look at the photos, all taken at or around feeders, and you will get just a glimpse of why the trip was such an amazing birding experience.

Here’s to Costa Rica for preserving its natural heritage and world class birding opportunities and for living up to its national motto: Pura Vida!*

* pure life – full of life!

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