Hummingbird summary August 2020

big difference this year was the sheer no. of hum plants we have in our back yard, incl many salvia sp, stache, zauschneria, penstemon, fireweed lining the east and south fence lines (Merry’s and Kevin’s lines)

neighbor Ray must still be doing his bee hives, as they were swarming at times, constantly at our water feature and at humfeeders

BUT 

it looked, sounded, felt like our “hum population” was in crescendo most of the month of August ?

our latest RUHU Fall first Observed Date (FOD) since moving here 8 yrs ago, was 07 August, same for CA, just in our small back yard, so we can’t extrapolate from this to anything, eh?

but, here ya go, our last observed adult male BC was 24 August per Missy’s notes, and she took daily notes

SW consumption rate / conversion to no. of hums / maybe ok for steady-state breeding populations, but we can not imagine this useful during migration when there is so much turnover ?

RU display dives were humorous for the 1st time here (in 8 yrs?) reminded me of ALHU dives I saw and heard at the UCSB / CA Arboretum in 1999 (my west coast hummer trip)