Hummer Preparations for Katrina (1 Viewer)

[Oubliette]

Thanks, Sarah, for the good wishes, words of encouragement, and support. They do lift the spirits!

[/QUOTE]Oubliette, I will be thinking of you (and your hummers) and everyone down in the area the hurricane has damaged. We (even in mid-Indiana) are supposed to get high winds and heavy rain tonight and tomorrow from the hurricane...Katrina was a big one! Stay safe.
Vernab

Thanks, Vernab. Katrina was, indeed, a big one. The area of destruction in Missississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana has been estimated to be over 90,000 square miles, larger than the state of Indiana, as one reporter put it today.

PRAYERS ARE COMING YOUR WAY !

Texas Granny, I believe in the power of prayer and do covet yours. Our God is bigger than this disaster, and He will see us through it. Your wonderful state is already doing so much for those poor souls from New Orleans. The number of people being evacuated from New Orleans is just amazing.

Oubliette, I'm so glad you and your hummers are okay, too and I hope Miss Sherry and her family are too. The scope of the destruction and suffering that the residents of New Orleans and the MS and AL gulf areas are having to endure is mind-boggling. The governor of LA has called for a day of prayer Wednesday.

Linda, the scope of destruction is absolutely mind-boggling. As far as Mississippi goes, the media is focusing on the hardest hit areas on the Gulf Coast, but catastrophic damage covers about 1/3 of our state. Many of our town's residents who have family in towns 75-100 miles from the coast are reporting that their loved ones' homes have been destroyed. A neighbor who has a daughter that lived 80 miles from the coast in one of our larger cities, and who is expecting to deliver her baby any day, was told that her hospital was shut down because of the damage the hospital suffered, and that she needed to find another hospital for her delivery. The entire lower half of the state has been without electricity and communications (phone lines, cell towers, etc.) since Monday. Anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 of the residents of the upper half of our state have been without, but services are coming back, more and more each day.

[/B]

As many of you know I grew up in Louisiana and I lived in Biloxi for three years. Though I have been in several hurricanes, I never experienced a hurricane of this dimension and even I can't fully rationalize the full impact. I can't imagine what those who are returning to their homes for the first time after evacuating are facing seeing everything completely gone including their jobs in many cases.

Penny, thanks for your concern and good wishes. What you said about having been in hurricanes is what I keep hearing, over and over. So many who chose not to leave said they had survived Hurricane Camille, and felt they would survive this one as well. Those who did survive didn't just lose their homes, autos, and everything else they owned, they lost their livelihoods as well. How do they go about rebuilding their lives when there are no jobs to return to?

Glad to hear you and your little friends made it through the turmoil. Been watching the news for the past few days and can't believe the destruction and all the grief left behind.

Thanks so much, Frank. The grief over loved ones has been the worst thing. One of our State Congressmen lives here, and his wife's father drowned in the storm surge. Others have not been able to contact loved ones because of downed communications, and they are frantic to discover if they survived. One of the neighbors on my street has family who evacuated and lost everything. Their young children are starting school here next week because their school was destroyed as well.

I know there's another thread going at the moment sending all of you in the affected areas our thoughts, prayers and good wishes but I would like to transfer some of that to this thread as well from accross the water.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Bluetit, for your concern and wishes. The aid from individuals, churches, charitable organizations, local, State, and Federal government has been amazing. Today I heard about all the International support as well. The spirit of generousity and outpouring of help from all over the country and world is humbling. We are so grateful.

 

[Oubliette]

Oops! I have the quotes and my comments reversed. Sorry.

 

[birdleggs]

Our Auxiliary is going to send money to the red cross. We have a couple of blood drives for them a year. If anyone is thinking of a donation, this is where I would send it. I do know that the hummers here all season have been few. Not like the last couple of years. It's like one day feast and several days famine.

 

[Curtis Croulet]

Most studies now are showing that many of the hummingbirds migrate south by circumnavigating the Gulf (going around it) while those from the east coast apparently island hop across to Mexico. Coming north, they tend to cross the Gulf directly.

Mark, maybe you could clarify something here. If the birds are circumnavigating the Gulf, then that means they're going through southern Texas -- right? Should not birders in, say, Brownsville and Corpus Christi be reporting extraordinary numbers of Ruby-throated hummingbirds in August and September? I'd think this would be one of the hummingbird meccas of the US. Is it?

 

[humminbird]

We do see a definite increase in the numbers of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in Cameron, Starr, Hidalgo and Willacy counties in the months of August through October. You do not get the HUGE numbers that we do in Rockport Texas (Aransas County East of Corpus Christi) during the next two weeks (we will see THOUSANDS) of birds there next weekend, but you have to remember these birds don't flock (although that too is being debated by research).

Also, not all of the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds circumnavigate the Gulf. Good numbers, probably the majority, do on the migration south, but not all.

Finally, not all of the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds move into Mexico. There is a good sized over winter population in the Lower Rio Grande Valley - a place where Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have been in small numbers all summer as well. This bird would not be an unusual bird in that area so, unless a feeder was getting overwhelmed during migration, the bird is not likely to be reported anywhere except in backyard surveys.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

 

[Curtis Croulet]

unless a feeder was getting overwhelmed during migration

I'd think that would happen. I was unaware that some of them overwinter in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Very interesting.

 

[humminbird]

I am in Central Texas about 40 miles east of down town Austin and have had Ruby-throated Hummingbirds overwinter here.

Mark
Bastrop, TX

 

[Mimidi]

Oubliette I am so glad you are O. K. Just getting around to check in on some sites. We have been getting things ready here to go to Biloxi to work on clean up. Everyone is leaving this moring so I will have plenty of time to watch my hummers and start cleaning up my yards. Have been keeping my feeders full and my fall flowers are coming on strong. There will be plenty of food for the hummers around here. On the road sides you can see little red morning glory vines for miles on the fences. As we have had some good rains the wildflowers are plentiful.

 

[Tz'unun]

It's a relief to hear from friends whose homes were in Katrina's path that they got out safely. The tragedy is just too enormous to comprehend. Our community is gathering clothing and other items for the evacuees, and a lot of my spare birding T-shirts will be headed east soon, but it's frustrating to be so far away and able to do so little (and to see official aid coming so slowly to those in dire need).

On the Ruby-throated migration route issue, there's really no simple answer. Many, but not all, do migrate north through eastern Central America and across the Gulf from the Yucatan Paninsula to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. (the ones that winter from central and southwestern Mexico to the southern U.S. pretty obviously don't). Apparently the circum-Gulf route is favored in fall, which makes sense when you think about hurricanes and how difficult it would be to hit the narrow target of the Yucatan (as opposed to hitting the U.S coast on the way north). Huge numbers can be seen this time of year around Rockport, Texas (just north of Corpus Christi), but migrants also spread farther inland in fall than in spring. Over the weekend, there were approximately equal numbers of RTs and Black-chinneds in Christoval, Texas, which is closer to the southeastern corner of New Mexico than to Austin. This westward dispersal, plus the fact that Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas, is actually east of Corpus Christi, explains why you don't tend to see huge numbers of southbound Ruby-throateds in the lower Rio Grande Valley.

 

[PennyD]

I talked to my friend yesterday who lives in Biloxi. She just got back home Wednesday night after evacuating to Talahassee. She said one of the first things she had to do was refill her feeders and that the hummers were there in force. It is amazing just how resilient these little birds are. She also said she hoped the other birds had faired as well because she wasn't seeing anything but the hummers. None of the other species have been seen.

Penny

 

[Oubliette]

Hi Penny. Glad your friend is OK. We have an aquaintance from Waveland who is still officially listed as "missing", but who we fear is dead. Her home, which was about two blocks from the ocean is gone, her car was found about one mile inland from her home, and her dog showed up the day after Katrina. Other friends and aquaintances have all checked in and are OK, thank the Lord.

Migration seems to be in full force here. I checked my "hummer diary" from last year to see how my nectar usage compared and saw that my heaviest usage last year was in the last two weeks of September. However, I noticed last night after downloading photos taken yesterday, that nearly all the birds photographed were female. This has me a little puzzled. Usually, this time of year when activity has really picked up around the feeders, the customers are almost all males. Then, the male population thins out and there is an increase in females and juveniles. Migration through North Mississippi should not be ending yet. Last year I had daily sightings of several birds until October 14 and my last sighting was on October 21.

Does anyone else have any ideas about what is going on? What are others in southeastern states seeing right now?

 

[Mimidi]

Oubliette, I could have sworn I had replied to this. I am so glad that you are O. K.

 

[Curtis Croulet]

plus the fact that Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas, is actually east of Corpus Christi

Without getting into research as to precisely where within these communities we're determing the longitude, I note that when I select these cities from an astronomy program (SkyMap Pro v.7), it gives me 97 deg 22 min 48 sec west for Corpus Christi and 97 deg 30 min 0 sec west for Brownsville. Thus -- at least for SkyMap Pro -- Brownsville is a hair further west than Corpus Christi. For our purposes they have the same longitude. But my a priori assumption would have been that east or west is of less importance than north and south and being able to follow the coast.

 

[Oubliette]

Hi, Mimi! I'm fine -- glad you're OK too! How are the folks in southern Alabama? We're not hearing much on the news about them. The focus seems to be mainly on New Orleans.

 

[Mimidi]

Oubliette, I am so glad you are O. K. I guess I am just a bit dense because I thought I had replied to this thread two other times. Am trying a third time.

My hubby, sons, and the guys who work for us are in Biloxi working. It is just me, my hummingbirds, daughter-in-laws, and grandchildren holding the hill.

Now to see if I got it right this time.