re: 2019 Flight of the Hummingbirds

I posted this link on the OT but this thread is a better place. This is a map of last year's ruby-throated hummingbird migration. It uses eBird records and plots each bird seen by date and then does a map for each week. You can pause it and move the slider by date if you want to know where hummingbirds are at any time of the year.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Migration

Some interesting things:

South Florida has a good population all winter.

New Orleans and Jacksonville have small winter populations.

Early in migration some are working up through the Mexican coast while others are flying from the Yucatan to Florida without a Cuba stop.

They then push up through Texas and Florida with about equal speed though there is an early jump into San Antonio, Houston, and north Florida sees a lot more very early birds than Texas.

Around March 28 the true migration starts and gulf coast populations explode from Gulf of Mexico crossings.

Canada does not see any until May, but by May 23 some have made it as far as Edmonton.

By mid May they are gone from south Florida - they do not breed there.

In July the country starts going from orange to purple - that is increased numbers due to breeding.

By late August they are pulling out of Canada and some are headed down through Mexico already.

Most of the migration looks like it goes through coastal Texas and Mexico; maybe some of the young are not mature enough for the cross Gulf flight. There is no migration down the Florida peninsula. I have a ton late in the year in the Panhandle so they are all ones that fly over the Gulf.

Coastal Carolinas hold on to some pretty late.

Fun stuff.