Rufous Hummingbird and other vagrant hummingbirds

 

An adult female Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) perches atop her favorite perch. This species, a rare visitor to Ohio, was visiting a feeder at a home only 10-15 minutes from my house. On November 23, Shauna and I ran down to have a gander at the little beauty.

The hosts, Dan and Sally Carlstrom, were exceptionally gracious in allowing visitors. Probably 150 or more birders visited, and nearly all saw the bird.

Ohio's first record of Rufous Hummingbird dates to August 15, 1985, when a male appeared at the feeders of Midge and Perry Van Sickle in Westerville. It remained for three days and was seen by over 100 people, your narrator included. As is the case with all first state records, the hummingbird generated great excitement, but at that time, none of us knew what was in store.

Since that inaugural Rufous Hummingbird, dozens of other records have been documented. While still a rarity, one or two appear most years. An exceptional year was 2003, when over a dozen birds were reported. Many Ohio extralimital hummingbirds have been banded and thoroughly documented by hummingbird bander Allen Chartier of Michigan, the bird in the photo included. Right now in Ohio, there is a Ruby-throated type (possibly Black-chinned, banding should resolve that tricky identification), another Rufous Hummingbird (or Allen's, also hopefully to be resolved by banding), and our second state record Mexican Violetear (visitation by the public is not possible for this one).

The 1985 Rufous Hummingbird was the first non-Ruby-throated Hummingbird (our only breeding species) recorded in Ohio. Since then, five other species have turned up, making for seven hummingbird species for the state, and there will likely be more additions to the list.

While the advent of hummingbird feeders is often implicated in this increase, I don't think that we know with certainty that that's the cause. It may be that there have always been out-of-range hummingbirds, and their propensity for visiting feeders just brought them to light. Also, the horticultural industry has managed to produce many plants with flowers that produce blooms late into the year, and this may be a contributing factor in the eastward wandering of western hummingbird species - which all of our vagrants (with one exception) are. The exception is the Mexican Violetear (Colibri thalassinus), a species of southern Mexico and Central and South America.

Wayward birds such as these are often termed vagrants. That's not a good word for them, in my opinion. "Vagrant" means someone/something without a home, that idly wanders about. That's not the case with these hummingbirds. They have well-defined breeding and wintering grounds, and their seasonality in both is also well-defined, as is their migration. Furthermore, a number of so-called vagrant birds, including some hummingbirds, have returned to their "vagrant" haunts year after year. While no one knows exactly where they go for the breeding season (most extralimital hummingbirds turn up in late fall/early winter), for all we know they return to the breeding grounds, find a mate, and nest.

I wonder if they might be better termed "scouts". Virtually all populations of animals, especially highly mobile birds, are constantly expanding/contracting their ranges for a variety of reasons. And the former - expansion - can only occur if scouts are exploring beyond the normal range, in search of new inhabitable lands.

Scores of hummingbirds in a fen meadow

 

A stunning western Ohio fen, as seen early this morning. I came here seeking to photograph a small suite of interesting species, but my ambitions got hijacked by scores of charismatic Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

PHOTO NOTES: I took this image and the next with my iPhone 16. This in spite of having my backpack loaded with my Canon 16-35mm f/4 wide-angle lens. Call me lazy, but I was also carrying a Gitzo tripod/Wemberley head combo on this two-mile trek, mounted to the Canon R5 and 800mm f/5.6 lens and that collective unit is a tank. Sometimes it's just easier to pull the phone out, and it performs pretty well in challenging light (I'm facing the sun).

A closer view of an especially floriferous patch of fen meadow. The entire opening is only about 1.8 acres, but the botanical diversity is incredible. There are many rare species, for Ohio, including much of the goldenrod in this image, which is Ohio Goldenrod (Solidago ohioensis). There's also plenty of Obedient-plant (Physostegia virginiana) in the picture.

Earlier in the week, I had found what I think is a Badger den in this general area, so I was keeping my eye on that area. The beautiful Grass-of-parnassus (Parnassia glauca) was also nearing peak bloom, and I had just discovered there is an oligolectic (specialist) bee that uses that: the Parnassia Bee (Andrena parnassiae). So, those two items were high on my list for today's mission.

However, as soon as I entered the fen proper via its encircling boardwalk, it quickly became apparent that the place was awash in Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris). I had certainly noticed them on my previous visit, several days earlier, but had stayed on point and focused on botanical imagery. Besides, I did not have a large lens with me, so it was easier to ignore the sprites. This time, I was armed for bear, so to speak, with the aforementioned monster lens. I also had the Canon 600 speedlite and Better Beamer flash extender, as paying great attention to the hummingbirds was high on my list today.

The female above is guarding her flower patch, which was mostly Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). If an interloper entered her turf, the chase was on. I estimated that about two dozen hummingbirds were present, and skirmishes were frequent. In fact, one of the "problems" with trying to shoot these birds in such a hummingbird-rich environment is the likelihood of your subject suddenly getting run off by another bird. That happened to me multiple times today.

There are lush stands of Obedient-plant in this meadow, and that's the plant that I really wanted to photograph a hummingbird visiting. The hummers really go for the stuff, and I saw several birds visiting flowers, but never when I was in a position to make a shot. I even staked out plants that were beautifully situated for photos, for quite a while, but of course no birds visited during those times.

A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird prepares to tap nectar from a truly elegant native thistle, Swamp Thistle (Cirsium muticum). Overall, this is not a common Ohio plant, as it is not only an obligate of wetlands (we have managed to destroy over 90% of those in the Buckeye State), but it favors high-quality wetlands such as this fen. The large purple flower heads are held five or six feet in the air, and act as beacons to the nectar-hungry hummers.

As an aside, native thistles are extraordinarily attractive visually, and to pollinators. Because of their often-thorny armature, thistles apparently have been largely shunned by the nursery trade. That, and unwarranted guilt by association with nasty nonnatives such as Canada and Bull thistles. Swamp Thistle would be the one to peddle. It is very light on prickles, and in my view, the showiest of our five native species.

Unlike the preceding plants, this one is abundant and widespread: Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). It occurs statewide, in every county, and is a fixture along waterways and wet areas. Jewelweed loves springy places, and the verges of the fen meadow have robust colonies. It was this plant that the hummingbirds most coveted, and every patch was diligently guarded.

PHOTO NOTE: I made this image with my 800mm lens. I'm a big fan of using telephotos for plants, and the bigger the lens, the better. Look how it just crushed the bokeh into a beautiful creamy brown blur. I shot this photo wide open, at f/5.6. How I wish a hummingbird would have visited when I was set up like this, but alas, none did even though I stayed there for some time.

A young male (judging by that red gorget feather) guards his patch of jewelweed. This section of the boardwalk had numerous jewelweed patches, and all of them were under guard by different hummingbirds. Kind of like gang members protecting their turf.

Another young male (I think) approaches some jewelweed flowers. Sometimes I could see four or five birds hitting jewelweed from one spot.

This plant is sold by some native plant nurseries, and if you get it going in the yard, I guarantee that any hummingbird in the neighborhood will be over for a visit. It is an annual, but self-seeds prolifically (the seeds taste like walnuts) and as long as it doesn't get crowded out, it should perpetuate itself. There is another native Impatiens, the Pale Jewelweed (I. pallida) with light yellow flowers. Hummingbirds also visit that, but it doesn't seem to be quite the hit that Spotted Jewelweed is.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Trumpet-creeper

 

My large mass of Trumpet-creeper (Campsis radicans) in my backyard. It is an irresistible magnet for hummers.

I was able to work with the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that constantly visit my snarled lianas of Trumpet-creeper (Campsis radicans) today. I put an iPhone photo of that floriferous mass here, along with two images of the hummingbirds (at least two visit routinely). A nectaring bird will often sit on the flower lip and plunge its body deep into the corolla tube.

The hummers also perch on the flowers and flycatch from them. Trumpet-creeper is heavily beset with extrafloral nectaries that produce sugary secretions, and these lure an abundance of ants, and other small insects such as bees and wasps. Thus, the plant not only provides an abundance of regular flower nectar for the hummers, it also provides ample protein in the form of small insects.

I know some people shy away from this tropical-looking species (most of the plants in the Bignoniaceae family ARE tropical) because it can be unruly, but any hummingbird enthusiasts would do well to plant some Trumpet-creeper.

Hummingbird guards hibiscus

I had a meeting at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers visitor's center at Caesar Creek Lake in southwest Ohio's Warren County yesterday. We convened to plan the 2023 Midwest Native Plant Conference, and it should be another doozy. As I've not had a chance to shoot much lately, I got down that way at sunrise, and wandered into a productive patch that I knew about. It wasn't long before I heard the rich warble of a Blue Grosbeak. While I had great studies through binoculars, the melodious animal never cooperated for images.

A great consolation was this female Ruby-throated Hummingbird. I had noticed three hummers aerially jousting on occasion, and as luck would have it, I found a favored perch for one of the sprites. Unfortunately, she chose a branch of the horribly invasive Amur Honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), but hey, we can't have everything.

She apparently chose her perch as it overlooked a nice patch of this plant, Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos). This photo is from elsewhere but offers a perspective of the scope and scale of this huge native mallow. If one of the rival hummingbirds came too near, she dashed out and drove it from the vicinity.

The hummingbird spent time apparently gleaning small insects from the flowers, as well as tapping nectar. The latter action was hard to shoot, as the flowers were mostly not angled my way. When she entered the flower, she'd more or less completely disappear inside the giant cuplike bloom. I had to wonder what it must be like, to be a tiny bird entering a flower much larger than you are. It would strike me as a surreal Alice in Wonderland sort of experience, basically akin to going into a flower fort.

What I would have given to have had pink flowers (Hibiscus moscheutos varies in flower color) angled just like this! What a hummingbird shot that would have made! Ah well, it wasn't possible to get this perspective yesterday, due to the swampy terrain and other factors.

But now that I know of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds' apparent fondness for the flowers of this gorgeous native mallow, I can probably bag such a shot in the future. Yet another photographic bucket list item added.

Hummingbirds and Royal Catchfly

 

A female American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) with a bill full of plant down. The vegan "wild canaries" are late nesters, with July and August peak breeding months. This one was building a nest in a nearby thicket. The colorful males do not assist. They are too busy chasing one another and delivering their impressive sky songs. While so engaged, the male arcs lazily about with slow shallow wing beats, all the while gushing forth an exceptionally ebullient song.

I photographed that goldfinch at Huffman Prairie during a visit on July 22. The 100-acre prairie is at its colorful peak from mid0July into August, and one of the botanical showstoppers is Royal Catchfly (Silene regia). This statuesque prairie plant attracts a very special little bird, and my main mission was to shoot them at catchfly plants.

A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) approaches a Royal Catchfly. It is thought to be the catchfly's only effective pollinator. The brilliant red flowers are irresistible to hummingbirds, and the sprites swarm Huffman Prairie at this season. Battles over catchfly are frequent. More than a few times I would have a hummingbird in my sights, ready to snap away, when another hummer would roar in and punk my subject. A speedy aerial chase would ensue, with the combatants sometimes spiraling high into the air.

I arrived not long after dawn, and it didn't take long to spot a hummingbird. My modus operandi here is to find a nice patch of catchfly, with at least a few unobstructed exceptionally tall catchflies towering above the snarl of colorful prairie wildflowers. One does not normally have to wait long for photo ops in such a situation. Shooting hummingbirds visiting the red-flowered catchflies wasn't too tough on this day, but I had a more challenging goal in mind.

Mission accomplished! A Ruby-throated Hummingbird visits the flowers of a very rare pink or salmon-colored form of Royal Catchfly. This variant is exceedingly scarce, and even at Huffman Prairie with all its catchfly, probably only 1 percent or less of the plants are this form.

To expand upon my tactics outlined above, I try to find a large, pink-flowered catchfly surrounded by typical, red-flowered plants. Such a situation offers the best of both worlds. I will likely snag images of the birds at red flowers and may get the opportunity to shoot them at the rare form as well. And luck was with me on this day, and I got both types of shots.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTES: I shot these images with my Canon 800mm f/5.6 on the Canon R5 mirrorless body, mounted on a Gitzo tripod with Wimberly head. The R5 has made such tasks easier. Its Auto Intelligence focusing feature grabs moving subjects with astonishing rapidity and locks onto them. Even fast-moving hummingbirds. The big lens allows for a fairly expansive swath of habitat to be covered. I can work out to around 30-40 feet in any direction and even at the outer reaches of my sphere, get usable images. As hummingbirds are nearly fearless, they will sometimes come into plants well within my lens's minimum focus of 19 feet. Sometimes birds will come within 5 feet! Occasionally a hummingbird will roar in and hover about eye level and remain there for a few seconds, staring at me. I suppose they are trying to figure out what the large biped with the funny gizmo is doing in their prairie.

Anyway, flash is key when shooting hummingbirds as it helps freeze movement and causes the birds' feather iridescence to pop. I use a Canon 600mm speedlite and a Better Beamer flash extender. The fresnel lens of the latter can throw usable light out about as far as I can shoot the hummers. I learned of a new peril involving fresnel lenses on this day. At one point I small an acrid burning odor. As there is a gun range in the distance, I thought it might be the smell of discharged firearms drifting over. No. I had left my camera rig pointing so the sun was shining right through the fresnel lens. Like a magnifying glass it greatly amplified the sun's rays causing my lens's camouflage lens coat to start smoldering. Easy fix: just remember not to align the Better Beamer with the sun.

Camera settings were mostly ISO 800 to 100, 1/4000 shutter speed, and f/8. The flash must be set to high-speed sync mode, of course, to allow it to function at shutter speeds beyond the sync speed of 1/200. The trade-off of going faster than sync speed is a great drop-off in light output from the flash. Enter the Better Beamer. Its light amplification allows one to throw the light far afield and hit distant objects.

Hummingbird confronts fly!

On the long-term bucket list is photographing Ruby-throated Hummingbirds at every major native plant nectar source with which the birds have an intimate co-evolutionary history. Thanks to a friend who lives nearby, I was able to obtain images of this female/immature male Ruby-throat at the beautiful flowers of Trumpet Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens.

NOTE ABOUT NATIVITY: Trumpet Honeysuckle is a southerner, and reaches its northern limits in southernmost Ohio. In my opinion, there is only one indisputably native Ohio population, in Scioto County (and not all botanists would agree with my opinion of that site, but that's another topic). So, this planted honeysuckle patch in Columbus is clearly beyond the species native range, but the hummingbirds don't care.

Anyway, it didn't take long after I set up my rig for the hummers to start hitting the flowers. There was also an adult male, but he didn't visit as often and never gave me a good shot. This bird was pretty easy to work, and I obtained a number of nice images. Of them, I liked this one the best. As I waited for its visits, I noticed that the "greenbottle" fly favored this group of flowers as a perch. When the hummer came in and I made this particular shot, she/he took umbrage at the fly, confronted it accompanied by loud chitters, and sent the fly packing. The bird then proceeded to plumb the deep floral nectaries with its long bill and tongue. While perhaps some larger sphinx moths might visit Trumpet Honeysuckle at night, and be effective pollinators, it's hard to think of pollinators that would be more effective than a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Because of their relationship with flowers, hummingbirds come into confrontations with large insects constantly. Bumblebees in the genus Bombus are common rivals, as are larger species of wasps. Sometimes big insects clearly win out, as when a large bumblebee is working a flower - the hummers usually wait for it to depart. This fly was no match though, and the bird quickly drove it away.

PHOTO NOTE: I generally do not like the look of flash on birds, and rarely use it on the feathered crowd. Hummingbirds are an exception. The flash does not seem to bother them at all, and the light makes the feather iridescence really pop. However, on this day light was abundant and well situated, so I did not use flash. This image was shot at 1/6400, f/8, and ISO 3200. While the ISO is beyond what I would prefer, the camera is the (fairly new) Canon R5 mirrorless, and it handles higher ISO ranges pretty well. I made a series of shots - since my little subject was so cooperative - ranging from shutter speeds of 1/1600 clear up to 1/6400 (maximum shutter speed for the R5 is 1/8000). When a hummingbird is really working those wings hard to maneuver around flowers, a speed of at least 1/5000 is necessary to mostly freeze the wings.

 

Nature: To fuel hummingbirds, think native plants

A female ruby-throated hummingbird taps nectar from a royal catchfly/Jim McCormac

Nature: To fuel hummingbirds, think native plants

Columbus Dispatch
May 2, 2021

NATURE
Jim McCormac

By the time you read this, “your” hummingbirds may have returned. Or maybe you belong to them. Common is the story of newly arrived hummingbirds hovering in front of windows, angrily chittering if their feeders have not yet been hung. Hummers have long memories. The slothful homeowner is shamed into rushing out with the sprite’s supply of sugar water.

Ruby-throated hummingbirds begin returning from tropical wintering haunts in the third week of April, and have recolonized Ohio by mid-May. These 3-gram elfins mostly winter from western Mexico south to Panama.

In an epic migration, many ruby-throated hummingbirds travel across the Gulf of Mexico. This nonstop water crossing is nearly 600 miles. Once the hummers make landfall along the Gulf coast, they’ve still got 750 miles to go to reach your Central Ohio yard.

Males precede females by a week or so, and quickly stake claims to suitable territories. When females arrive, amorous males begin a spectacular courtship. The Lilliput flares his colorful throat feathers, and launches into his dive display.

Like a feathered meteor, the male streaks earthward from on high creating a loud buzzing with its wings. At the bottom of its arcing parabola, which might be 50 feet below the starting point, the hummer pulls out and shoots skyward. The showoff might continue this incredible aerial display repeatedly.

Once a female expresses interest by perching nearby, the male zooms over and commences zipping side to side at insane speed, often within 2-3 of her.

If she is suitably impressed, they mate.

And so ends the male’s role in this relationship. He abandons the territory he had staked, and helps not a whit with nest construction, egg incubation, or care of the young. Once the avian lothario’s spectacular but brief fling is over, it’s back to a carefree lifestyle among the flowers.

The much more responsible female crafts an amazing golf ball-sized nest from plant down, binding it with spider silk, and shingles the exterior with lichens. Two eggs the size of jelly beans are laid.

After the impossibly tiny chicks hatch, she works tirelessly to feed them a mixture of nectar and insect soup. The female sticks her long bill deep down the baby’s gullet, and pumps in the nutritious gruel.

When she isn’t out foraging for food, the hummingbird broods her charges. A harder working bird you will not find.

About three weeks after hatching, the young hummers depart the nest. The female will continue to feed them for perhaps a week, but then it’s time to go solo. The youngsters have much street savvy to accumulate before jetting off to the tropics for the winter.

While feeding hummingbirds with sugar water (one part sugar, four parts water) is rewarding for all parties, there is a much better way to help them.

Grow native plants.

Hummingbirds have a long co-evolutionary history with our flora. The female in the accompanying photo is tapping nectar from a royal catchfly. Hummingbirds are likely the only suitable pollinator for that gorgeous prairie plant.

Some showy hummer-friendly native plants for the yardscape include bee-balm, cardinal flower, coral honeysuckle, fire pink, Ohio buckeye, both spotted and yellow jewelweed, trumpet creeper, wild columbine, and the aforementioned royal catchfly.

Help a hummingbird and add some native plants to the yard. Two excellent native plant nurseries in Central Ohio are Natives in Harmony (nativesinharmony.com) and Scioto Gardens (sciotogardens.com). The Midwest Native Plant Society has a wealth of helpful information (midwestnativeplants.org).

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jim mccormac.blogspot.com. 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird pollinates Cardinal-flower

I made an epic foray into southern Ohio's Shawnee State Forest back on August 1, and had several photographic goals in addition to shooting whatever I might bumble into. One of these goals was to photograph a ruby-throated hummingbird in the act of pollinating a plant that the little birds are especially smitten with. Some success was had, and the story plays out below.

Cardinal-flower, Lobelia cardinalis, one of our showiest native plants. It seems fitting that such a gorgeous plant would have an interesting pollination ecology that involves one of our most charismatic birds.

The flowers on this spike are young, and mostly staminate (male) at this point. The arcuate grayish projection from the summit of the flower contains the sexual parts, and when the flowers are new they extend a brushlike clump of stamens capped by the anthers which contain pollen.

This is a different cardinal-flower in the same colony, but the flowers are older and have progressed to putting forth largely female organs. The stubby grayish protrusions are now mostly capped with longer extensions that contain the stigma, or female pollen receptacle. The male anthers have done their work regarding pollen dispersal, and been replaced by the opposite sex.

One must exercise some patience when trying for shots such as these. I found a few particularly stately cardinal-flower spikes, rigged up my tripod-mounted Canon 5D IV with 400mm lens, and 600 speedlite, then settled into a three-legged camo chair to await my quarry. As it happened, I did not have to wait long before a female ruby-throated hummingbird appeared. After making these images, I disassembled my big rig and went back with a wide-angle lens for general flower shots. While doing that, this tiny but fearless hummer returned and began working flowers within a few feet of where I knelt.

The hummers routinely visit cardinal-flowers, which apparently are prolific nectar-makers. The nectaries are deep within the corolla, forcing the bird to plunge its bill far into the flower. In the process, the top of its head makes contact with the downward-curving sexual flower parts. If the flower is in the male phase, pollen will be deposited on the hummingbird. If in the female phase, pollen from some other flower - hopefully from another plant - will transfer from the bird's head to the stigma, and thus pollinate the flower and allow production of fruit.

A closer view, showing the flower's stigma scraping the top of the hummingbird's head. It'd be virtually impossible for the bird to access its reward - the nectar - without coming forcefully into contact with the flower's reproductive parts.
 

While hummingbirds certainly must be the primary pollinator of cardinal-flower, as is often said, I believe that swallowtail butterflies, especially spicebush swallowtail, Papilio troilus, must at least occasionally provide pollination services. This is a spicebush swallowtail working the same patch that the hummingbird above frequented. Swallowtails swarm blooming cardinal-flowers and at times there were a dozen or more mobbing these flowers. While the butterfly/flower dynamic is not as well architected as the hummingbird/flower arrangement, I bet pollen still gets transferred between both flower forms.

The coevolution of cardinal-flower and hummingbirds is a particularly showy example of the myriad ways in which plants have forged alliances with animals.

Nature: Female hummingbird an impressive homemaker

A female ruby-throated hummingbird feeding its chick in Montgomery County.

Columbus Dispatch

August 20, 2017

NATURE
Jim McCormac

“Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyone’s responsibility.” — Ban Ki-moon

The former secretary-general of the United Nations might not think much of male hummingbirds: The boys are a disengaged group.

Of the 16 species of hummingbirds that breed in the U.S., only the ruby-throated hummingbird nests east of the Mississippi River. The speedy sprites are well-known, even to people only casually interested in birds.

The hummingbird relationship serves as a prime example of one in which the female does all the heavy lifting.

The penny-weight males return from the tropics in April, many of them having negotiated a 500-mile flight over the Gulf of Mexico. Upon their return to northern nesting grounds, the males stake a claim on suitable nesting spots.

Females return about a week later. When one enters a male’s turf, he struts his stuff. To woo his prospective mate, the male ascends as high as 50 feet, then swoops earthward like a missile, pulling up sharply at the dive’s conclusion and roaring back aloft. The U-shaped flight display is accompanied by an astonishingly loud wing buzz.

What female could resist?

If successful in wowing his girl, the male then consummates the relationship. Then he’s gone, off to cavort with flowers, roam meadows and, eventually, return to tropical haunts long before the hardworking females.

The female wastes no time starting the nest.

A ruby-throated hummingbird nest is an exquisite structure. Every time I see one, I’m amazed that the tiny, long-billed birds can construct such a home.

She begins by harvesting thistledown and other soft plant material, which is saddled to a horizontal branch using spider silk. Harvesting the silk is why hummers are sometimes seen poking around in garages and under eaves.

Eventually, she builds the nest walls into a soft cup, tied together with silk and shaped by using her body as a mold. Finally, the nest’s exterior is shingled with lichen bits for camouflage. The result is an architecturally ornate cup about 1 1/2 inches tall and 2 inches across.

Two pinky-fingernail-sized eggs are laid, and she incubates them for about two weeks. The elfin hatchlings are naked and helpless. They are born into a luxurious down-filled home, but they grow like weeds, and their bulk soon taxes the confines of the tiny shelter.

The properties of spider silk come into play by allowing the sides of the nest to bow outward yet remain strong, allowing the ever-expanding house of the hatchlings to grow to meet their needs.

All the while, the female busily gathers nectar and small insects to feed the chicks. About three weeks later, the baby hummingbirds are ready for their inaugural flight and head out into a landscape filled with summer wildflowers.

The accompanying photo depicts a nest shown to me by photographer Dean Porter, who had been tracking it and making excellent images of its progression. I’m grateful to him for sharing its location.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Hummingbirds and Royal Catchfly

A Ruby-throated Hummingbird plunges its long swordlike bill deep into the corolla of a Royal Catchfly, Silene regia, flower. Hummingbirds are the primary pollinators of this beautiful prairie plant.

I promised in the last post to share a few photos of the fruits of my hummingbird photography labors. Last Thursday, July 20, I was at Huffman Prairie near Dayton, Ohio shortly after dawn. I knew the catchfly would be at peak flowering, and this would mean lots of hummingbirds. There are few if any better situations in which to photograph Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and as that was probably the only day I'd get a crack at this, for this year at least, I wasn't going to waste it.

Botanist Thomas Nuttall, a man who had seen a tremendous spectrum of our flora, called the royal catchfly "one of the most splendid species in existence." Adding to its allure is the fact that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are its primary pollinator. Standing in a large prairie dotted with the scarlet spikes of catchfly, with numerous hummingbirds darting about tending to the colorful flowers, is near magical.

Even if I never attempted a photo, I'd still savor the time spent watching these feathered sprites shooting about the rich prairie, tapping nectar from catchfly plants, snapping tiny insects from the air, and constantly sparring with one another. The sheer aggressiveness of these elfin birds is astonishing. As often as not, I'd be setting up on a hummer that starting exploring a plant's flowers, when another bird would strafe in at top speed and send my photo subject packing. Occasional, two birds would get in a real dust-up, spiraling up, up, and up, chittering and buzzing around each other until they were tiny specks in the sky.

Royal Catchfly flowers are normally the brilliant scarlet of those in the preceding photo. However, a very small number of plants at Huffman Prairie sport these gorgeous pale pink blossoms. I've only seen this variant one or two other places, both in Ohio prairies. It apparently does occur very sparingly in a few locales outside of Ohio.

I picked my photo spot carefully. The patch of trail that I set up on had plenty of normal catchfly plants, including a few large sentinels. Best of all, though, were two nearby fine pink-flowered specimens. I figured that sooner or later, a hummingbird would visit these botanical oddities and give me a chance to shoot it in the act of going pink. Sure enough, I did get a few opportunities and the shot above is one of the successful attempts.

Photographing hummingbirds isn't easy, and requires considerable patience. At least if you're shooting them in the wild, on their own terms - not at a feeder. I spent about four hours, mostly in the same spot, awaiting opportunities. None of it is time wasted. One learns tons about hummingbird behavior by doing this. Plus, bonuses abounded. A Dickcissel chattered its song from nearby high-rise plant stalks the entire time. Bobolinks passed overhead, giving their mellow pink pink call notes. The soft insectlike hiccup of a male Henslow's Sparrow provided aural accompaniment. Two rival Common Yellowthroat males routinely launched into their flight songs, ascending about 25 feet vertically into the air all the while delivering a more ornate version of their song, then fluttering feet down back into the vegetation.

I tried a new tactic with equipment this time, screwing on my Canon 800mm lens to the 5D IV. More is better, you know. It was overkill, and I probably won't use it again for hummers. That lens has a minimum focusing distance of about 19 feet, and on several occasions hummers came much closer than that, sipping from nearby flowers and offering what would have been awesome shots with a lesser lens. I've got a smaller, lighter 500mm that focuses to 7.5 feet, acquires focus faster, and is just as razor sharp. That's the lens for hummers, at least in a situation like this. Fill flash came from a single on-camera Canon 600 II speedlite intensified with a Better Beamer, all of this equipment atop a tripod, of course. I used shutter speeds ranging from 1/2000 to 1/3200, depending on lighting conditions. On high speed sync mode and at shutter speeds above the 1/200 sync speed, the flash loses a ton of intensity, and its working distance becomes ever shorter the higher the shutter speed goes. ISO becomes the ruling factor - I don't like running it beyond perhaps 1600, and am much happier with 800 and below. Nonetheless, even though these images were made at ISO's over 1000, they still look pretty clean and noise-free even without much post-processing work. I also shot the lens wide open - f/5.6 - to permit entry of as much light as possible.

Brutal thunderstorm, and hummingbird photobomb

A palette of color, courtesy of some Grade A prairie plants, stretches as far as the eye can see at Prairie Oaks Metro Park in Madison County, Ohio. Franklin County Metro Parks has long been on a mission to restore big chunks of the former Darby Plains prairie, and their successes are there for all to see. We're fortunate indeed to have such a fine parks system in Central Ohio; a park system that thinks as much of native flora and fauna and natural ecosystems as it does ball fields, playgrounds, etc.

I was on a photographic mission in the prairies and fens west of Columbus today, and managed many keeper images of a wide-ranging cast of subjects. The scene above was a no-brainer; anyone armed with a camera would have stopped for photos. However, as I took the image above, to my back was a great prairie thunderstorm rolling in from the west. Shortly after making the image, I was forced into the car and beat a retreat to the building that's visible in the backdrop of this photo.

As always, click the pic to expand

Always one to make lemonade from lemons (or sometimes, at least), I saw the roofed, east-facing porch of my sheltering building as an excellent spot to try for some lightning images. Thor only knows enough of it was zapping down from the turbulent rain-filled skies, each strike followed by the loud booms of thunder.

So I grabbed my tripod, Canon 5D Mark III, the Canon 16-35 f/4 lens, and a remote shutter release and beat feet to the shelter of the porch. I had never tried shooting lightning, but sort of knew the principles behind it. I took a lot of images, but managed only this one keeper. Part of the problem was there was still too much light, despite the blackish skies. That meant it was hard to get a decently underexposed image with a super-slow shutter speed. After realizing this I rushed to the car to grab a polarizing filter, as that would kill a few stops of light. But by then, it was such a monsoon my filter got wet and I forgot to grab a soft cloth to dry it with.

Ah well - live and learn. Anyway, for those of you into photography, here's the parameters for this shot: Canon 5D Mark III with 16-35 f/4 lens set to 35mm, tripod-mounted and shutter tripped with remote release. F/22; ISO 50; shutter speed 1.3 seconds. The crazy settings were an effort to slow down the shutter speed as much as possible, with some intentional underexposure. I think lightning shooting would be much easier at night, and I look forward to trying.

Before I was forced to the building, I had a remarkably fortuitous experience with a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird. I was shooting this Royal Catchfly, Silene regia, with a 180mm macro, and experimenting with various exposures and angles. Shooting bright red flowers, and not blowing out the color, is harder than one might think. Anyway, as I was shooting I noticed this hummingbird rocket into the image just as I pulled the trigger. Voila! Not bad for some dumb luck. The bird took a quick pull of nectar and shot off, probably seeking shelter from the storm, too.

Royal Catchfly is one of the coolest native plants that can grace a garden. I will GUARANTEE that if ANY hummingbirds are in the neighborhood, they WILL be frequent visitors to your catchfly. This weekend's Midwest Native Plant Conference in Dayton will be awash in a diversity of excellent natives courtesy of our various vendors, and I'm sure someone(s) will be selling Royal Catchfly. If you can swing it next Saturday, stop by the conference and pick up some catchfly and other highly valuable native plants. Your yard, and the world, will be better for it. Conference details are RIGHT HERE. While the conference itself is long sold out, all are welcome on Saturday for the plant sale.

Bands pinpoint oldest of birds

An "ancient" female Ruby-throated Hummingbird, caught and banded by Allen Chartier, proved to be eight years, one month of age. Photo courtesy Allen Chartier.

BANDS PINPOINT OLDEST OF BIRDS

Columbus Dispatch
Sunday, August 3, 2014

NATURE
Jim McCormac

I recently received an email from Allen Chartier, a hummingbird expert who lives in Michigan, bearing news of an old bird. He had captured a ruby-throated hummingbird in his home state that proved to be 9 years, 1 month old — the oldest ruby-throat on record.

Chartier had caught the bird in 2006 — it was already an adult — and placed a tiny metal band with unique coding on its leg.

Hummingbirds typically burn up quickly. Most chicks don’t survive their first year, and of those that do, a life span of a few years is probably the norm.

Chartier’s bird was a Methuselah among hummingbirds and has made many journeys to Central America, where ruby-throated hummingbirds spend winter. Chartier estimates that the nickel-weight bird has traveled more than 36,000 miles, and she isn’t done yet.

Two days after capturing the bird, Chartier caught another female that was 8 years, 1 month old.

The science of bird banding — placing metal rings on the banded bird’s leg — provides much of the data regarding bird longevity. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory oversees bird banders and keeps records. Thanks to its workers, we have a much better idea of how long wild birds live.

Most songbirds don’t survive their first year. Only about 25 percent of American robin fledglings survive until November the year they hatch. Those that live longer can expect to last about 1.7 years. Thus, a robin in California that lived to be 13 years, 11 months, defied all odds.

One of the oldest birds ever documented was a Canada goose right here in Ohio. It lived to be
33 years, 3 months.

That pales in comparison with the true ancients of the bird world: the albatrosses. A female Laysan albatross dubbed Wisdom was first banded as an adult on Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in 1956. She still returns to nest and successfully fledge chicks. Wisdom is at least 63 years old.

Wild birds face a life fraught with peril: predators galore, brutal weather, diseases, parasites, and man-made threats including tall buildings and vehicles.

The oldest known wild orchard oriole lived to be 10 years, 11 months. A female of the same species, found injured as a fledgling, was kept captive and free from the usual threats by Ohio artist Julie Zickefoose. It survived to 17 years of age.

Many longevity records derive from birds that were banded or recovered in Ohio, including the following:

• Great horned owl: 28 years

• Tundra swan: 25 years, 3 months

• Great egret: 22 years, 10 months

• Blue jay: 17 years, 6 months

• Turkey vulture: 16 years, 10 months

• Barn owl: 15 years, 5 months

• Chimney swift: 14 years

• Indigo bunting: 13 years, 3 months

• Common nighthawk: 9 years

• Cape May warbler: 4 years, 3 months

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com
 

Hummingbird progress

I saw an email today from Bill Hilton in South Carolina, reporting his first Ruby-throated Hummingbird of the year from Hilton Pond. This bird was one day later than Bill's earliest record, and pretty much right on schedule for that part of the country. Bill, by the way, is one of the country's premier hummingbird researchers, and you should check out his wonderful website HERE.

This prompted me to check the eBird data chest to see their map of the hummers' northward progression.

Here it is, showing hummingbirds starting to penetrate to the latitude of Tennessee, with one southern Indiana record. Still a ways from Ohio, although we did have one credible report from an experienced observer a few days ago. Insofar as I am aware, that would best the previous early Ohio record by over two weeks. I do think hummers may appear here a bit earlier than normal, and we should start to see some more reports within ten days or so.

You may recall that I recently blogged about a site that annually posts a hummingbird migration map, HERE. I expressed incredulity over that map's spate of northern records (CLICK HERE for their latest map), and I remain quite skeptical of hummingbirds.net's map. Since then, someone sent me another website's hummingbird migration map, HERE. It also has plenty of groundbreaking records.

These maps have drawn plenty of skepticism, and commentors responding to the skeptics seem to fall into two camps: 1) those of us who doubt the maps/records are saying that the reporters who contributed the maps' records are liars; or 2) eBird reporters and other observers just must not be finding these early hummingbirds.

I don't believe either of those answers is correct. I believe that all, or nearly all, of the weeks-early northern records that makes up those non-eBird maps are cases of misidentifications. Our exceptionally warm late winter and spring has seen a very early emergence of large insects that normally would not yet be on the wing, such as carpenter bees, green darner dragonflies, and various big sphinx moths. And believe me, people can and do mistake these large bugs for hummingbirds. If someone does spot an honest to goodness hummmingbird that is weeks early, they should try to document its identity to ensure it isn't one of the potential vagrant non-Ruby-throated species. There is nothing wrong with questioning the out-of-the-ordinary, and wanting to see solid evidence for significant new trends, such as hummingbirds appearing weeks earlier than they've ever been reported.

Anyway, the eBird map draws on carefully vetted records and is reliable. I think it provides us with an accurate picture of this spring's hummingbird migration thus far.

Hummingbird versus eagle

I received an interesting email from Tim Tolford yesterday. He saw that I would be at the Amish Bird Symposium in Adams County this coming Saturday, and that my talk subject is hummingbirds. So, Tim piped along a really cool photo of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that he caught and banded in 2010. This got me thinking about the tremendous diversity of avifauna, and just how tiny hummingbirds really are.

By the way, the Amish Bird Symposium is always a blast, and you may still be able to get in. CLICK HERE.

An adult Bald Eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus, floats gracefully overhead. I took this photo in the winter of 2010, in Ohio. So, this is one of the tough northern eagles, and they grow bigger than the wimpy warm weather southern eagles, such as are found in Florida. And, we're going to assume she is a big fat female - girl eagles outweigh the boys by a good margin. I'm pegging her weight at the upper end of the spectrum - 15 pounds.

Contrast that beastly big bird with a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, which tapes out at 3.75 inches, has a wingspan of 4.5 inches, and weighs all of 3.2 grams. It would require nearly 8.5 hummingbirds, arranged from bill to tail, to equal the body length of the eagle. Whoop-de-do. That's not a staggering factoid. The line of hummers would have to be expanded to 18 birds to bridge the eagle's wingspan - a bit more impressive but still somewhat of a yawner comparofactoid.

But wait - what about weight? This is where comparisons between these two birds get mind-boggling. You would need a pile of 2,128 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to equalize the scales, if this Bald Eagle was the counterbalance. That is a LOT of hummingbirds! Considering that Ohio's total breeding population of hummingbirds is probably about 50,000 birds, we only have enough hummingbirds in this state to make 23.5 Bald Eagles.

So, let's say you had your hands on that pile of 2,128 eagle-equaling hummingbirds, and placed them in a line, tail to bill. Then you pulled out the tape measure and paced off the row of hummingbirds. You'd have to step off 665 feet before you reached the last bird!

That skyscraper above is the James A. Rhodes State Office Tower, the tallest building in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Our string of hummingbirds, if dangled from a helicopter, would have to be held at a height 36 feet HIGHER than the 629 foot tall Rhodes Tower before the last bird would touch the ground.

Wee though they may be, we'd all be in mortal peril if these hummingbirds were the size of eagles. The little nectar-sippers are tough as nails and absolutely fearless. I have no doubt whatsoever that if a Bald Eagle rudely impinged on a hummingbird's turf, the hummer would terrorize the comparatively elephantine and sluggish raptor. And in the world of avian aeronautics, nothing holds a candle to hummingbirds in the stunt-flying department - certainly not an eagle.