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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Low numbers this year? (1 Viewer)

Beach Bum

Well-known member
We moved about a year ago, and one of the first things I did was to set out a hummer feeder. Instant success. We had lots of visitors. This year, it's a different story. A few days ago, I had my first visitor. A single female, and she hasn't been back since then. Has anyone else had this experience this year? Nothing in the area has changed, so I have no idea why we're being ignored. My neighbor has had the same experience.
 
I'm having a ton of them right now in the Dallas area. There seems to be more and more the hotter it gets, and we are having a big heat wave right now in the triple digits. Hope they come back to you soon!
 
I had a real dearth of hummers in late spring - May and most of June. I usually have much lighter numbers during that time, but this seemed extraordinary compared to the last two years. I should say that in my area, I have Anna's and Allen's hummers all year around along with the occasional Rufous, Black-chinneds and Costa's from late spring through summer.
What was also odd was that I saw more Costa's adults during that time than I ever have. It may be that in the big fire that we had here last December, the Costa's lost their usual habitat, so they were coming down into the town more than usual.
Then it got unusually hot in July and the numbers of hummers coming to my yard increased dramatically. I went from making 5 cups of nectar a week to making 7-1/2 cups of nectar a day. The weather finally cooled down a bit over a week ago but I'm still making that amount of nectar 5 days a week.
Another unusual thing is that I've seen black-chinned juveniles and females lately, but the juveniles seem to be getting their adult iridescent chin feathers far more slowly than in the last couple of years.
The oddest thing, though, is that I usually have feeder guardians who stay at one feeder anywhere from a day or two to several days. That hasn't happened since early spring. First, it seemed as if it was because there was no reason for birds to guard feeders because there were so few birds and plenty of natural food sources in the neighborhood; then it was as if there were so many birds no one could manage to guard a feeder for more than a morning or afternoon.
It's been a weird hummingbird year!
 
No issue with my yearly residents of Anna's and Black-chinned.
Seems the Rufous migration completely missed me this year.
In prior years I would have 30 individuals visit in 24 hours.
 
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