Check out the disparity here...

[Lilbirdz]

No longer interested in partipating here.

[crickieheather]

I registered at that site and attepted to report that my feeder is up, but they don;t give you an option for feeder up for hummingbirds. They have th emap, but no one can report it!

[KCFoggin]

I've had 2 up thru the winter and another 4 waiting in the wings ;)

[Katy Penland]

Okay, okay, I'll get all 3 of mine out and get one hung up! LOL! I think we're about 3 weeks away from seeing any of these little jewels, but better early than late, huh?

[humminbird]

I run three feeders all winter. Worked with a hummingbird bander yesterday who runs 75 feeders all winter. When I tell people that, they tell me I am crazy and that these birds are not in North America over the winter. I enjoyed my first hummingbirds of the year January 1 though.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[jeeper]

Lilbirdz

Thanks for the link last year was our first effort here for hummers and it was quite successfull. Acording to posted reports it's time in my area and that was the answer to my question here. :clap:

[humminbird]

Lilbirdz

Thanks for the link last year was our first effort here for hummers and it was quite successfull. Acording to posted reports it's time in my area and that was the answer to my question here. :clap:


You don't say where you are in Louisiana, but much of that state is a hot spot for winter hummingbirds!

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[jeeper]

You don't say where you are in Louisiana, but much of that state is a hot spot for winter hummingbirds!

Mark
Bastrop, TX

Probably far to north for winter overs. I'm in Natchitoches about midway between Shreveport and Alexandria (North central to folks from other areas).

[humminbird]

Probably far to north for winter overs. I'm in Natchitoches about midway between Shreveport and Alexandria (North central to folks from other areas).

Actually, hummingbirds overwintered at three different locations in Dallas, TX - which is north of you - this year. Two of those locations have had hummingbirds overwinter for the past three consecutive years each.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[jeeper]

Actually, hummingbirds overwintered at three different locations in Dallas, TX - ...
Mark
Bastrop, TX

The food source must be available then although I can not picture what it is though. I don't mean to stir up what's probably an old war but it may go back to what I've wondered about people providing artificial food sources for birds. Please no one take that as instigation or first shot that starts another battle in an endless war only explain to me what that natural source could be.

[humminbird]

The food source must be available then although I can not picture what it is though. I don't mean to stir up what's probably an old war but it may go back to what I've wondered about people providing artificial food sources for birds. Please no one take that as instigation or first shot that starts another battle in an endless war only explain to me what that natural source could be.

I'm a little south of Dallas, but I had blooms on my Salvia gregii all year.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[FeistyRdHd]

I run three feeders all winter. Worked with a hummingbird bander yesterday who runs 75 feeders all winter. When I tell people that, they tell me I am crazy and that these birds are not in North America over the winter. I enjoyed my first hummingbirds of the year January 1 though.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

Mark,

Do you know how far south (out of the country) the hummers migrate? I have been trying to find out this information with no luck.

Lydia :news:

[FeistyRdHd]

I will put my feeders up this week. :)

I want to mention that in the summer during our peak, after the young are out and about, we have between 20 and 30 resident hummers for a couple of months or better. We have 2 large feeders, a butterfly bush and a mimosa tree.

I have only lived here for 2 years, so it is still unreal to see (and hear) them at peak feeding time! I can't wait for their return!

Lydia

[FeistyRdHd]

Mark,

Do you know how far south (out of the country) the hummers migrate? I have been trying to find out this information with no luck.

Lydia :news:[/QUOTE]

I found my own answer to this question. It also may answer questions about why hummers may be found in TX during the winter and why some are earlier than others. This is a great article!
Hummingbird Migration (http://www.hummingbirds.net/migration.html)

[tugboatphil]

We put our feeders out the 2nd week of April every year. It's usually just a day or two before we see them. Right now we have 2 couples. By June we'll usually have 8 or 9. Once they start buzzing in a swarm it's hard to count.

We're up on the Blue Ridge, so we stay a little bit cooler than most of Virginia. We actually had some snow flurries after putting out the feeders, but that didn't stop them.

[humminbird]

Lydia:
No North American hummingbirds cross the equator into South America. To my knowledge, the Calliope makes it well down into Central America though.
Ruby-throats and Black-chinneds are only going into south Mexico (Ruby-throated into the Yucatan, Black-chinned further west).

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[humminbird]

We put our feeders out the 2nd week of April every year. It's usually just a day or two before we see them. Right now we have 2 couples. By June we'll usually have 8 or 9. Once they start buzzing in a swarm it's hard to count.

We're up on the Blue Ridge, so we stay a little bit cooler than most of Virginia. We actually had some snow flurries after putting out the feeders, but that didn't stop them.

On December 24, Victoria Texas received 12 inches of snow. December 25 a hummingbird banding friend of mine woke up to Buff-bellied Hummingbirds (and three other species) still at his feeder. The Buff-bellied is broadly recognized as a tropical species. Snow does not stop them from visiting.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[cfagyal]

Lydia:
No North American hummingbirds cross the equator into South America. To my knowledge, the Calliope makes it well down into Central America though.
Ruby-throats and Black-chinneds are only going into south Mexico (Ruby-throated into the Yucatan, Black-chinned further west).

Mark
Bastrop, TX
I've had Ruby-throated Hummers in Costa Rica a few times, but they are definitely not common there, though according to Robert Ridgely in Birds of Panama "winters in Southern Florida and from Mexico to Costa Rica". Skiles and Skutch in Birds of Costa Rica says "Uncommon to common winter resident in northern Pacific lowlands".

Most N. American hummers as Mark says stay in Mexico. Magnificent Hummingbirds, which are at the far northern tip of their range in SE Arizona at Madera/Ramsey/Miller/Ash Canyons get as far south as Panama, but the ones in Panama and Costa Rica are most likely year-round residents of those countries. In Costa Rica, Magnificent Hummingbirds prefer habitats above 8000 ft going all the way up to treeline, which is at least somewhat close to SE Arizona, where they are in the canyons around 5500-7000 ft (and probably higher, but most of the feeder locations are at the lower elevations in the canyons). Although in Costa Rica these habitats are Cloud Forests and quite wet.

I can't find any other North American hummingbirds (at least ones that regularily occur in N. America...i'm not counting Green-breasted Mango or Green Violetear or Plain-capped Starthroat, all three of which have been seen in the US in the last two years) that get as far south as Costa Rica or Panama. There were zero N. American species that have ever occured in Ecuador from what I can find.

[wings]

I'd say Ramsey canyon's feeders at the Nature Conservancy Preserve are at about 4500 ft. I did, however, see one Magnificent hummingbird there. They are huge in size, compared to the others.

[humminbird]

They are found every year at the Nature Conservancy property in Fort Davis at the main buildings which, if I am not mistaken, are well below 7000 feet (probably closer to 5K)

Mark
Bastrop, TX

[Tz'unun]

Actually, the feeding station at Ramsey Canyon Preserve is at about 5530 feet and used to get dozens of Magnificent Hummingbirds (mostly after closing time). They're also common visitors at feeders below 5000 feet in Portal throughout the breeding season and occasionally wander to lower elevations in migration. The northern limit for annual occurrence of "Mags" appears to be in the mountains of east-central Arizona and west-central New Mexico, but there are quite a few records for north-central Arizona and central Colorado. It's highly doubtful that any Magnificent Hummingbird that summers in the U.S. winters any further south than central Mexico; we're still waiting for band returns to prove this, but since a few individuals spend the winter in southeastern Arizona it's more likely that the migratory majority winters in the northern Sierra Madre within a few hundred miles of their breeding grounds. Some authorities treat the birds in Costa Rica and Panama as a separate species, the Admirable Hummingbird (Eugenes spectabilis).

[cfagyal]

I was just making a rough guess at altitude. I guess for Ramsey I was pretty close. I know parts of Miller Canyon are higher up. I've had mags at Ramsey, and Miller canyons in SE AZ, and at much higher altitudes in Costa Rica at Bosque de Paz and Km78 at Mirador de los Quetzales along Cerro de la Muerte. I didn't know about the Costa Rica/Panamanian bird as possibly a separate species, though it would make some sense. The habitats they prefer down there are pretty dramatically different than up here. I'd tend to agree that any bird that summers in SE AZ probably doesn't migrate much further than central Mexico, at least as far as Mags are concerned.

[Tz'unun]

I'd tend to agree that any bird that summers in SE AZ probably doesn't migrate much further than central Mexico, at least as far as Mags are concerned.

It's safe to broaden that statement to "all hummingbirds that summer in SE AZ." Mag, White-eared, Berylline, Broad-tailed as nesting species and Plain-capped Starthroat as a rare, post-breeding visitor are the only hummingbird species that summer in SE AZ and occur south of Mexico, and I don't know of any evidence of long-distance migration in any of the Central American populations of these species. We're hoping that stable isotope analysis will shed some light on the latitude where some of our northern breeding hummingbirds do winter.