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Anna’s and Rufous hummingbirds

By Bob Hamblin

I’ve talked about hummingbirds before but not in depth. This column offers details. First, there are four hummingbird species in our state. The Rufous and the Anna’s are mainly west of the Cascade mountains. The Anna’s is a resident, while the Rufous winters in Mexico with a few in Gulf coast states.

Black-chinned and Calliope are most common east of the mountains. They like warmer areas with mostly coniferous trees and they take more insects as food. Calliope even feed at sap holes drilled by woodpeckers.

Our Rufous like nectar and also sugar water at feeders. They take a few insects for protein.

Males set up a territory in early March if the weather is warm enough for salmonberry, wild current, and native plants to bloom. Males fight and display so much they burn extra calories in cold or wet and windy weather. They may go into a very deep sleep mode known as torpor. They are very vulnerable at this point and may be captured by predators. This deep sleep reduces their heartbeat to as low as 45 beats per minute and their body temperature drops but they conserve calories and can fight another day.

Their courtship dives can reach 40 mph. The rapid speed at the bottom of the dive affecting the tail feathers creates a whining sound.

Females lay two eggs in the nest sometimes as early as mid-March if the weather permits. If the weather is wet and cold newly hatched nestlings may take up to three weeks to fledge and leave the nest. If it continues wet and cold the mother may feed them for another three weeks. She regurgitates a mixture of insects and nectar from her crop.

First year male Rufous born in the spring often stay on their territory until October to learn their boundaries. They become very defensive of the area.

I heard some strange tales about hummingbird migration while at Williams Lake, British Columbia. Did you hear that hummingbirds migrate on the backs of bald eagles? I didn’t know that!

The Anna’s hummingbird is now a permanent resident. In the late 1970s a very cold spell in this area lasted over two weeks. Bellingham went to below zero. Anna’s had moved as far north as Vancouver. They were wintering on the western Washington University campus. They stayed on and in the English Ivy growing on the building known as Old Main.

The plant covered most of the north wall, 200 feet long and two stories high. An evergreen, it provides flower nectar and insects all year long. It also acted as a thermal barrier retaining building heat. This was not enough to protect the hummer or to provide sufficient food. The entire population of Anna’s disappeared that winter all the way south to Seattle, where a few birds survived. These birds have again moved north and have again reached Vancouver.

If you have Anna’s at your place, keep the sugar water feeders thawed out, especially in the morning. Birds can only go a day or so without nectar or sugar water in cold weather. Also increase the sugar ratio from four or five to one to three to one.

Unlike Rufous males, Anna’s males are not so aggressive and they do not go into torpor. Instead they sleep at night and burn fewer calories during the day because they have a defined permanent territory.

The most aggressive male Rufous I’ve seen attacked a bald eagle in flight, some 200 feet off the ground. The chase continued for several hundred feet. The eagle had no defense and was somewhat upset.

Next: black-chinned and Calliope hummingbirds and where to look for them.