Our last hummingbird left on November 4th and after trying to deal with two juveniles last winter I am elated.

I do have a question however. Last year we had hummers continuously but the beautiful redheaded male Anna didn't show up until Nov 17th. He was here for about 5 days. He returned Feb 27th for about the same length of time. Do you think I should keep the feeder out for another 10 days to see if he comes back? I don't want to attract any more juveniles.

This photo was taken in 07. I don't use this feeder anymore but like the picture.



DJoanH - Joan
Yakima - Central Washington State
Zone 6a

Joan,

I'm not sure what you mean by "don't want to attract more juveniles" (or why), but rest assured that hanging a feeder out does not discourage a hummingbird from migrating. The bird will leave when & if its biological clock says it's time to go.

Insofar as I know, there is no way to attract just the adult males to your yard, so if you're only looking for "the pretty ones", I'm afraid you're out of luck. But even if that's the case, consider this: feeding a young male may help it, in some small way, to survive and return later as an adult male.

Kevin Morgan
Baton Rouge, LA

I I were you and I lived where you live I would leave a feeder up.

Penny
Niagara Falls, NY
USDA zone 6a/6b
Heat zone 4
Sunset zone 39

Kevin & All -

Perhaps you did not see my message where I fed two juveniles until Dec 21st last year & lost them the 2nd time it got below zero. It was a challenge keeping them and their nectar warm and it was terrible losing them. I didnt want to go through that again.

I think all hummers are pretty. The adult male Anna is rare here and I was hoping to get better photos of him. The adults have the good sense to leave but some juveniles don't or they get lost. Also, I thought if there wasn't a feeder here they might fly a few miles south or west where it is warmer but Ill leave it out.

Thanks -

DJoanH - Joan
Yakima - Central Washington State

Joan,

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your question. Let me restate this - it's not a question of sense; hummingbirds migrate according to a built-in sense, triggered most likely by the shortening of days. It's not something they learn, and it's not affected by having feeders up. About the most we can say is that some younger birds eventually develop the correct instinct (probably), but we can't readily prove that.

Part of the problem is that Anna's have been greatly expanding their range in recent years. Not that long ago (ie the middle of the 20th century), Anna's were rare north of San Francisco, California. But the species adapts well to human habitation, perhaps better than any other North American hummingbird, and as the population along the west coast boomed up towards Portland, Seattle, etc. Anna's moved along with them. So speaking evolutionarily, and species-wise, winter temps in central Washington are a novelty to them.

More problematically, Anna's are not strictly migratory in the sense that other North American Hummingbirds are. They do not completely withdraw from their breeding grounds and head south to Mexico; indeed, historically they didn't migrate at all, but merely wandered about a bit after the breeding season, grabbing food where they could. That works fine in, say, Los Angeles, where it seldom freezes; it even works along the coast further north where ocean currents help keep the temperature up. But into central Washington, it's far more problematic.

In any event, rest assured that leaving your feeder out is not what's going to keep them from moving on. In fact, they may simply try to rely on natural food sources if you take the feeder down, and then when flowers freeze and insect populations crash, they may starve. Keeping a feeder up, as long as you don't mind making sure it's not frozen in the mornings, may in fact be the only way a bird which has not moved south can survive.

That said, it's tough to go outside and find a dead hummingbird in the cold. But at least you can rest assured that simply offering it food didn't keep it there to cause its death.

Kevin Morgan
Baton Rouge, LA