Hummingbirds, East and West

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle May 9, 2006

Do you have hummingbirds in your area? Read my article on hummingbird feeders for information on an easy way to get them to come closer.

When I'm sitting on my front deck, in the shade of the honeysuckle vine, I am always alerted to the arrival of a hummingbird by the burrrrr of its wings. Then all I have to do is sit still and keep my eyes on the honeysuckle - if it's in bloom - or the hummingbird feeder, and I'm sure to see the tiny bird pause in mid-air to collect some nectar.

It's fascinating to watch a hummingbird, one minute holding still, the next darting away so quickly that I sometimes lose track of it and have to search to find it again. Years ago, while waiting for a ferry crossing on the West coast of Canada, I watched a number of hummingbirds coming to a feeder outside the ferry terminal. To get to it, they had to cross to the other side of a chain link fence; instead of going over the top of the fence they were flying through the fence between the links as if there was nothing there at all. Tiny as they are, it must still have required very precise flying but not one of them ever hesitated or turned away.

At the time, I wasn't paying very close attention to the birds' appearance and assumed they were the same species of hummingbirds I am used to seeing on the East coast - the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. My excuse is that I was too absorbed in their navigation through the fence. I now know that it is unlikely that they were Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, as that species doesn't normally occur on the West coast. They were probably Anna's Hummingbirds, which look like the Ruby-throated only if you are in a daze, as I obviously was! Now I wish I could go back and take a closer look.

In reality, relatively few hummingbirds venture so far north at all. There are over 300 species of hummingbirds, all of which are native to the New World (North and South America). Most of them never leave the tropics. The Rufous Hummingbird ventures the farthest north of all, migrating up the west coast into Northern British Columbia, and occasionally even into Alaska in the warmer months. Some locations in the Southwestern United States will regularly have nine species or more.