Anyone else have an unusually large number of hummingbirds this year?

jyoutz · Feb 23, 2022

Larry Caldwell said:
The drought is back with a vengeance. It hasn't rained over 0.2" since the first week of January, and this is supposed to be the middle of the rainy season. Temps have been incredibly mild, 60 degrees here yesterday, with a low of about 33. The Annas are zooming around like it's mating season. I don't know how many we have, but we're going through about a pint of hummer juice a week.

You have hummingbirds in February????

jyoutz · Feb 23, 2022

lman said:
I always thought it got colder out there. Fortunately we've got a couple of months to go. We usually have about 20 huumers between 6 feeders. It did make it above freezing the last couple of days.

We don’t get hummingbirds where I live until nearly Memorial Day. And they leave after the first frost in October. But we have a lot in summer.

Larry Caldwell · Feb 23, 2022

jyoutz said:
You have hummingbirds in February????

The pleasures of a Mediterranean climate. It's supposed to get down to 18 degrees, which is the coldest here in 5 years. We're inside the Annas winter range. Before we fed we had one or two wintering over, now that we keep feeders out we have more.

jyoutz · Feb 23, 2022

Larry Caldwell said:
The pleasures of a Mediterranean climate. It's supposed to get down to 18 degrees, which is the coldest here in 5 years. We're inside the Annas winter range. Before we fed we had one or two wintering over, now that we keep feeders out we have more.

Wow. Sounds nice about this time of year.

oosik · Feb 23, 2022

Hmm - Myrtle Creek, OR. About 500 miles SW of me. But a completely different climate. It's +5 F here this morning. The saving grace - no wind.

jyoutz · Feb 23, 2022

oosik said:
Hmm - Myrtle Creek, OR. About 500 miles SW of me. But a completely different climate. It's +5 F here this morning. The saving grace - no wind.

Yeah. Eastside vs westside Cascades. Two different worlds.

Larry Caldwell · Feb 23, 2022

I got buzzed at dawn replacing the frozen feeders.

jyoutz · Feb 23, 2022

Larry Caldwell said:
I got buzzed at dawn replacing the frozen feeders.

That’s interesting to me because our hummingbirds only show up when all frost is over for the year and leave after the first freeze. We use them as an indicator of when it’s safe to plant frost sensitive garden plants.

Larry Caldwell · Feb 23, 2022

jyoutz said:
That’s interesting to me because our hummingbirds only show up when all frost is over for the year and leave after the first freeze. We use them as an indicator of when it’s safe to plant frost sensitive garden plants.

I wonder if altitude has anything to do with it? My house is at about 800 ft. Isn't NM pretty high altitude?

jyoutz · Feb 23, 2022

Larry Caldwell said:
I wonder if altitude has anything to do with it? My house is at about 800 ft. Isn't NM pretty high altitude?

Our house is at 6950’ elevation. Probably has something to do with the bird migration. We’ve always considered them to be fair weather friends and a great indicator of the start and end of the growing season.