COLUMN: Hummingbirds are on the move!

     Hummingbirds are on the move!  Along with monarch butterflies, green darner dragonflies, red-winged blackbirds, and turkey vultures, hummingbirds are heading south on their fall migration.

     Natural signals and cues spur animals and plants into action as they prepare for the change in season and what will come next. As the daily amount of sunlight decreases, hummingbirds begin preparing for their annual fall migration by increasing their intake of nectar and insects. You might notice feeding frenzies of hungry hummers at your feeder station.

     Hummingbirds will soon seem to suddenly disappear before the flowers begin to wane in the short days of fall. They are on a race before the freezing frosts and snow and ice cover the landscape wiping out flower food sources.

     As hummingbirds migrate south, finding flowers is critical. Migrating hummingbirds will search for flowers in a variety of habitats including landscaping around homes, businesses, and schools, pollinator gardens, pastures, prairies, roadsides, wetlands, and wildlife preserves. A great incentive for all of us is to make sure we have landscaping that will help migrating hummingbirds and other pollinator species from early spring through late fall.

     Research being conducted with the help of citizen scientists across the globe is beginning to give insights into hummingbird migrations. Researchers have learned that hummingbirds use the same migration route each year, may stop in the same areas to feed, and tend to migrate individually, not in large flocks.

     In addition, research has shown that male hummingbirds begin heading south as early as late July and August, leaving the females and immature hummingbirds in northern latitudes. This strategy is speculated to help males avoid competition for waning flowers and give them access to higher quality nectar sources. Immatures are the last to migrate, taking longer to gain strength and put on weight before they begin their fall migration.

     Ruby-throated hummingbirds have a long journey, migrating as far as southern Mexico and Central America. There are several things you can do to help them. One of the easiest is to provide natural landscaping with native long tubed flowers. A few great native Iowa flowers include milkweeds, wild bergamot, cardinal flower, prairie phlox, four o’clock, columbine, jewelweed, and obedient plant.

     If you provide hummingbird feeders, clean them often and provide fresh food daily until temperatures drop below freezing and natural flowers die back. A simple mix of a quarter cup sugar dissolved in one cup water in a red-colored hummingbird feeder is all you need.

     You can help scientists learn about migrating hummingbirds by submitting observations you make to Journey North at https://journeynorth.org/hummingbirds.