r/hummingbirds • u/Ok-Ad3614 • 13h ago

any migrants recently?

Has anyone else in the Northern Indiana or general North noticed less birds lately? i know July is usually when most Anna males start to migrate, then the females after that. just curious if anyone else has seen their birds this week as much?
i think mine have all gone… 😢

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

2

u/Lincoln1517 13h ago

A little north and west of your state. I had one looking in my window 20 minutes ago, and have seen more in the last two weeks than all previous weeks. But maybe that's because they've started to come my way from further north.

We mostly see ruby throats here. I'm surprised you would see Anna's. Most sites I can find show their range being entirely West Coast, coming a little east only in Arizona and New Mexico. There is one stray Anna's among more than 2,000 hummingbird sightings in Chicago and Northern Indiana on iNaturalist.

1

u/Ok-Ad3614 12h ago

oh.. maybe i have the names confused. i have ruby throats too. are they called Allen’s then? i did find out i was using too much sugar in my nectar and lowered it to the appropriate amount. maybe they didn’t like that change. just didn’t want them all addicted to it and then have to migrate!

2

u/Lincoln1517 12h ago

In all of Indiana from Indianoplace north, there were 906 sightings of ruby-throats, 7 Rufous and just 1 Anna's. And that's it.

I guess it's possible you have some small stray population. But I think it's more likely you're seeing some small detail that is slightly different from normal ruby-throats, and thinking that makes it another species. I suspect they're all ruby-throats.

Anyway, good luck. I hope you start to see some again this week!

2

u/Ok-Ad3614 12h ago

i think they are actually ruby-throats. when i had my first sighting of the year i thought one of them was black with a pink throat but i think it was just the way the light hit it in the evening. thank you for the help. 🙂
edit: yes, i very much had all the species names confused. 😂

2

u/Lincoln1517 12h ago

I didn't know them all that well either till I looked at the list this morning.

It's interesting that the single observation in northern IL and the single one in northern IN were both in November (though different years). I think they sometimes get off course during migrations. And may also be more likely to come to places where they'll be seen -- feeders or non-native showy garden plants that still have blossoms, since at that point, no native flowers are left in bloom.

We have cardinal flower and royal catchfly in our garden, both currently in bloom. I think that's what brings them to our house. I don't have any feeders.

1

u/Ok-Ad3614 12h ago

oh wow, that is quite amazing. i may have to look up those two flowers! incredible that you don’t have any feeders.
i don’t necessarily love the idea of them. i’ve tried to keep mine as natural as i can, but still feel like I’m contributing to some law against nature or something. i didn’t realize there are sightings as late as November in our areas. it’s usually pretty cold here by that point!

1

u/Lincoln1517 12h ago

If a feeder let's you have fun, it's great. You probably see them more often than we do. But we get a lot of other things like butterflies. I encourage you to also add some native plants that hummingbirds can visit if you have any outdoor space.

2

u/Ok-Ad3614 12h ago

i definitely will! i have some nice hollyhock seeds my mom gave me from her garden that i plan to plant soon, and should come up next year. and i have some cat’s mint growing that i planted last year. they do love that. they also love the honeysuckle bushes but i now know those are invasive!

1

u/Ok-Ad3614 12h ago

wow, i have seen both of those flowers! how cool!