If you take the time, put yourself in an environment to observe and pay even a little attention, the world outside will reveal its infinite wonders. Last week, one of those wonders appeared in the yard, just about on cue. For a couple of weeks, we’d been expecting them, perking up at the sounds we’d recalled from earlier years, a kind of chucking, or clicking and wings buzzing. The subtleties of sounds muddy over a year, so you’re never quite certain. But, there was no doubt when the hummingbird arrived. Marlene saw it before she heard a sound. It went straight for the scarlet runner flowers and poked around a bit. This was the second year we’d planted the bean but the first time it had a pole to climb. The red is brilliant and obviously attracted the hummingbird. Andrew Hurly, professor of vertebrate zoology at the U of L, says colour is important in the first visit but when it returns, it seems they remember the place, not the colour. “But, some have been known to fly at car tail lights and one even went after the top of a friend’s sunburned ear.” Makes sense. We’d taken great care to keep the dropmore scarlet honeysuckle vine healthy because hummingbirds in the past seven years or so have flitted between that and red bee balm to gorge themselves on nectar. But, come to think of it, the plants are in the same place. Among the characteristics that make hummingbirds so fascinating is their size: they’re the world’s smallest bird, packing three grams into an eight or nine cm length. Their wings whir at 75 beats per second and they can fly at 100 km/hr. At times, it’s like an air show in the backyard when more than one hummingbird appears. It’s the first one here, presumably, that aggressively defends its dinner table. Andrew found a connection between the memory of hummingbirds and the flowers that hold nectar. They appeared to time their return to the same flower, knowing that the flower needs time to produce more nectar and to defend the space against intruders. Andrew continues his research into hummingbirds because “they are really useful to study,” particularly the “energetics issues they face.” They use energy all the time and need to feed continuously through the day, at least every 15 minutes or so, to survive. Researchers have also looked at the apparent connection between declining rufous hummingbird numbers and the use of hummingbird feeders. They concluded if people used a lower concentration of sucrose in feeders, “they would help the population of hummingbirds and preserve their natural habitat.” The rule of thumb is one part sugar to four parts water, says Andrew. The study was done in the mountains west of here. Rufous, Calliope and Black-chinned hummingbirds are common between Waterton and the Crowsnest Pass. When they appear here, it’s a real event. They’re Ruby Throats, in the spring migrating north to their boreal forest summer habitat and in August at the start of their migration to Mexico. We feel privileged that they stop by.
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