It was Bill Moore who peaked my interest in estimating total hummingbird numbers to my feeders. He uses a caloric intake calculation which would be a quite accurate method. In Googling his method & others, I’ve also found another calculation. Take most hummer numbers seen at feeders at one time & multiply by 6.
I’ve been checking both methods the past week & found that each gives results within 2-3 birds of one another. Yesterday, at most, by each calculation would have had 36 hummers. This AM, 18. This AM, seeing juv Black-chinned & Calliope only. Makes me wish I had watched real-time Doppler last night (as previously discussed with Robert) to look for an outgoing rush of “biologics”. As seeing much fewer BH Grosbeak numbers this AM, as well.
In any case, appears fall movement to the south of songbirds has started in earnest. Not surprising, with recent onset of heat wave, wildfires & cool mornings.
Interesting, re: the molting info, Bill. Earlier in the week, I was seeing some “scruffy” juveniles, mainly Black-chinned. Since Thu, all are bright & fresh looking.
I haven’t seen an adult of any, Black-chinned, Rufous nor Calliope, since Wed. All are juveniles & still getting all 3. Although, Rufous are fewest in number, as of today. No Broad-taileds here, as of yet.
I’m still getting many hummers. I refilled feeder number 132 today after three yesterday. That’s a few ahead of last year’s figures, retired engineers do numbers. I guess I’ve got all normal species, but not many rufous if any. They are displaying and charging each other with passion.
One observation after Jay’s molting facts, are some are brilliantly feathered, M & F, and some are quite dusky and mottled. Last year the feeder numbers dropped precipitously at August month end.
We are a breeding mecca for house wrens. There were two batches in the garage, two in bird house on driveway and several batches around the house. Now I think a pair is trying one more time in the yews under the front window.
Brian, we had a flurry of black-chinned and rufous duking it out for a week, and now near silence. They did drain the 2 cup feeders in a matter of days, I guess I should do the math but that sounds like plenty. I’m waiting for a broad-tailed to show up. Or at least a Calliope. The hummers are hitting the hyssop fairly hard as well.
Seeing lots of juvenile hummingbirds. Have: Black-chinned, Rufous & Calliope. The only time they’re semi-tolerant of one another is right at daybreak. They’re at least civil, with a hummer perched at each port & sev hovering, waiting their turn. But, after about 20 minutes, pure chaos. I’ve seen at least 11 individual hummingbirds, including a juv Black-chinned with some leucistic wing feathers.
Based on previous correspondence with Bill Moore, calculated by how much nectar they’re consuming, at least 35 diff’t hummers are hitting the feeder. Also, saw 2 juvenile Spotted Towhees scratching under the seed feeder, bringing nesting birds to #31 for the place.
Many thanks for that foot tip. I’ll remember that. The chest pattern told me RT but all the white on the face made me think otherwise. Happy to be set straight. Between here and Montour at the moment it is thick with raptors, particularly late evening. Nice place to practice.
Yes, Chuck is correct – I didn’t see the original photos from your yard, and assumed we were talking about the photo in the second post. But the photos of the hawk in your yard are indeed of a juvenile Red-tailed, as Chuck says.
I feel that stability has returned to the universe, as it was very disconcerting to me to disagree with Chuck on an i.d. 😉
Liz, note the difference in the feet on your photo on the fence post, and the Macauley Library photo of the Swainson’s.
Gracias, Mark, nice to get feedback. And thank you Chuck. Just to be clear my first photos were in my yard, the second post was from Maccauley and labeled “Swainson Hawk.”
I’m not sure if it was the Swainson or an RT this a.m. that took out the kestrel nest in our front maple. We woke up to a ton of racket, lots of kestrel alarms, and upon leaving for our walk, a hawk flew out of the maple carrying what looked like nesting material and a nestling, which he casually ate for breakfast at the top of a utility pole while the kestrels mobbed him.
Typically the kestrels nest in a box here, but they moved into the maple this spring – this would be a second clutch, and now I’m afraid it’s gone. I didn’t know hawks would raid a kestrel nest. Dang…
That’s a young Swainson’s Hawk – possibly a dark morph. The heavy, tear-drop shaped spots on a tawny background are typical of juveniles of darker Swainson’s. But the real clincher is the small, delicate feet – RTHA has much larger feet.
