re: The flight of the Hummingbird 2017 Update: Pg. 6 They are on the move!

I only have 3 or 4 left, at my peak I think i had about 10

4 this morning. No chasing at all. Just perching on the hooks and casually feeding from time to time. Going to leave a couple of the feeders up through October just in case I get a Rufous.

mine have slowed, but still going pretty strong this morning. Son still had them swarming around him before school and said a few landed on his finger. I am down to making nectar only once every 2 to 3 days as opposed to daily.

The dry spell isn't hitting them too hard. Most of the birds in the fall are migrants so they are passing through and won't spend a lot of time in drought areas. And they eat insects as well as drink nectar from flowers.

Mine have really slowed down in the last week. Two weeks ago was the peak, around 15 hanging around. Now it's 1 or 2.

Leave a feeder up in the winter, the gulf coast increasingly has wintering hummingbirds. And half or more are species you don't see in the summer. A friend had 5 species last winter. Baton Rouge is getting decent winter numbers in yards with flowering plants in addition to feeders. This fall I'm going to do some landscaping to make my yard hummingbird friendly.

My #'s are way down last couple of days in N. MS. I expect the #'s to pick up briefly tomorrow ahead of the cold front.

The most hummers I have ever had happened a few years ago just ahead of strong cold front. It was like a swarm of bees. Probably a 100 or more hummers came in all at once and fed long enough to stay ahead of the front and then left. I guess they wanted to keep the north wind behind them as they flew south.

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I've got more than ever,,about 15 sharing feeders here in NE Hou.

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That's interesting. Migratory birds do have two paths. One is across the Gulf of Mexico. But a lot of them stay over land and hug the Texas and Mexico coast on the way down further south. It sounds like you are getting the ones sticking to the land route.

Anyone seeing any hummingbirds? I haven't had any on my feeders in a few days.

I don't know what's best, take feeders down or leave up if they've migrated out. Any suggestions?

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I started with a couple of gray/black/white ones in early August.

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I saw those as well. What species are those? I can't figure it out.

Put three feeders out yesterday (MS Gulf Coast). I know its probably a couple of weeks early but I figured it was best to be early than late as they start passing through.