Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa

Where Are All the Hummingbirds?

One of my favorite writers, Hal Borland, often referred to what he described as nature’s eternal patterns. The many joys we experience up here on the hill are rooted in the promise of those patterns. Season after season there are certain things that we can count on. There inevitably will be slight alterations in the annual performance but, by and large, we can anticipate these annual encores. At least that has been the case until several years ago.

This year’s puzzlement has to do with an obvious decrease in the hummingbird population. It is easy to blame it on climate fluctuations, but I am not so sure that the climate need always take all the blame for what might just be a naturally-occurring digression. The undeniable fact of our culpability with respect to climate change notwithstanding, perhaps it is not always the culprit. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a hummingbird. At any rate, I keep a birding journal and ever since we settled in up here I have noted the comings and goings of our most prominent avian visitors. For instance, every year but this one the ruby-throated hummers have shown up between May 2-5. This year, one appeared at one of our two feeders the morning of May 10th. Usually a sort of swarm occurs and hummers are seen darting from feeder to feeder and later on engaging both in play and courtship antics. Lots of hummers buzzing about the place. This year, every once in a while we see one lone drinker at a feeder who often sits on the clothes line the feeder hangs from for very long periods of time without any evidence whatsoever of competition for one of the two cups of sugar water. Normally when we are sitting on the deck we might be strafed several times by a curious hummer. Not so this year. I asked a friend yesterday about his hummer population and he indicated the same diminution of his normal population. This is anecdotal stuff, but it does indicate that something might be amiss.

Perhaps even eternal patterns mix things up from time to time. We used to have at least two pairs of tree swallows swoop in and take up residence in the same nest boxes every year. We got so used to them that we named them Don and Dora. We could sit on the deck after first light on an early May morning to await their arrival. When they dropped down to check on things we would say, “Don and Dora” are back. Eternal pattern reaffirmed. Not so the last two years. Interestingly, in my walks I have seen hardly any at all. Perhaps they have discovered more fertile ground. Or, as is the case with most of us, change of scenery is good. Revitalizes the soul—or maybe not.

The pattern was altered for a number of years when the several pairs of bluebirds that summered here disappeared. Maybe another case of having been made better offers elsewhere. One pair returned last year but abandoned their little ones, whose lives appeared to be taken by some sort of parasite. This year we have one pair that came early and chose not to disappear for several weeks before taking up residence. That had been the pattern in previous years. Shake the place down, look elsewhere for a few weeks, and then return to raise their family. We hope this pair’s little ones fare better than last year’s. They are pretty active and seem to be making many feeding forays into the box. Fingers crossed.

For years, house wrens showed up in late spring. They are here now, but do not seem as noisy and thus far have not commandeered the empty nest boxes, which has been their annual pattern of behavior. Time will tell.

It appears that the general pattern is intact, but one wonders about the reasons for these behavioral digressions. Things are often simpler and less mystifying than they seem. For instance, our wintering in Arizona for the past several years is part of an annual migration to warmer climes by people like us described as “snowbirds.” We have decided to stay put next winter. In short, we are altering what we thought would be an annual trek westward for a variety of reasons, surely different from similar decisions made by bluebirds, wrens and tree swallows. There is something very alluring about mystery. Our avian friends have their reasons; we have ours. Each species gets through time as best it can. It is no less true for us.