Late Season Ruby-throated Hummingbirds…Again

Last October 3rd, a late-season Ruby-throated Hummingbird stopped by the garden at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters to take shelter from a rainy autumn storm.  It was so raw and chilly that we felt compelled to do something we don’t normally do—put out the sugar water feeder to supplement the nectar produced by our fall-flowering plants.  After several days of constant visits to the feeder and the flowers, our lingering hummer resumed its southbound journey on October 7th.

Fast forward to this afternoon and what do you know, at least two migrating hummingbirds have stopped by to visit the flowers in our garden.  This year, we have an exceptional abundance of blooms on some of their favorite plants.  In the ponds, aquatic Pickerelweed is topped with purple spikes and we still have bright orange tubular flowers on one of our Trumpet Vines—a full two to three months later than usual.

Late-season Ruby-throated Hummingbird
We checked each of our late-season visitors carefully to be reasonably certain that none was a stray western species of hummingbird.  All appear to be female or juvenile “Ruby-throats”.  If you have an abundance of flowering plants and/or you’re going to maintain your hummingbird feeders through the coming weeks, be on the lookout for western species.  Most are more hardy than our Ruby-throats and some have remained in the lower Susquehanna valley through the winter.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Mexican Cigar
As is typically the case, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds quickly gravitate toward the tubular flowers of our Cuphea ignea, the Mexican Cigar.  They find these showy plants to be absolutely irresistible.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Mexican Cigar
Mexican Cigar grows wild in parts of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird’s winter range.  To them, it’s comfort food.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Bat-faced Cuphea
We’re trying some new cultivars of Cuphea to see how they do.  As this composite image shows, the hummingbirds won’t let our Bat-faced Cuphea (Cuphea llavea) alone.  It’s another plant native to Mexico and Central America, right where some of our hummingbirds spend the winter.

Remember, keep those feeders clean and the provisions fresh!  You’ll be glad you did.

Photo of the Day

Zabulon Skipper on Pickerelweed
A female Zabulon Skipper visits a cluster of Pickerelweed blossoms.  The Zabulon Skipper is a small butterfly of our streamsides, riversides, damp meadows, and other moist grassy spaces.  The Pickerelweed is an emergent plant of lakes, ponds, and wetlands.  Add it to your next project to improve water quality and help pollinators like the Zabulon Skipper.  You may even attract a hummingbird or two!   

The Mexican Cigar

You’ve heard and read it before—native plants do the best job of providing sustenance for our indigenous wildlife.  Let’s say you have a desire to attract hummingbirds to your property and you want to do it without putting up feeders.  Well, you’ll need native plants that provide tubular flowers from which these hovering little birds can extract nectar.  Place enough of them in conspicuous locations and you’ll eventually see hummingbirds visiting during the summer months.  If you have a large trellis, pole, or fence, you might plant a Trumpet Vine, also known as Trumpet Creeper.  They become adorned with an abundance of big red-orange tubular flowers that our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds just can’t resist.  For consistently bringing hummingbirds to the garden, Trumpet Vine may be the best of the various plants native to the Mid-Atlantic States.

Trumpet Vine
The showy bloom clusters of Trumpet Vine are irresistible to Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

There is a plant, not particularly native to our area but native to the continent, that even in the presence of Trumpet Vine, Pickerelweed, Partridge Pea, and other reliable hummingbird lures will outperform them all.  It’s called Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea) or Firecracker Plant.  Its red and yellow tubular flowers look like a little cigar, often with a whitish ash at the tip.  Its native range includes some of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird’s migration routes and wintering grounds in Mexico and the Caribbean Islands, where they certainly are familiar with it.

This morning in the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters garden, the Ruby-throated Hummingbird seen in the following set of images extracted nectar from the Mexican Cigar blossoms exclusively.  It ignored the masses of showy Trumpet Vine blooms and other flowers nearby—as the hummers that stop by usually do when Cuphea is offered.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea)Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea) Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea)Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea)Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea)Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea) Some garden centers still have Mexican Cigar plants available.  You can grow them in pots or baskets, then bring them inside before frost to treat them as a house plant through the winter.  Give the plants a good trim sometime before placing them outside when the weather warms in May.  You’ll soon have Ruby-throated Hummingbirds visiting again for the summer.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Mexican Cigar (Cuphea ignea)
  

Photo of the Day

Pickerelweed and Eastern Carpenter Bee
An Eastern Carpenter Bee visits the flowers of an emergent Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) in the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters pond.  Each Pickerelweed blossom has conspicuous yellow spots on its uppermost petal, an adaptation shared with the Great Rhododendrons featured in a post earlier this month (July 1).  For each of these species the purpose of these pollen look-a-likes is the same, to attract bees to the pistils and stamens of the flower.  Do these lures work?  Just take a look at the pollen accumulated on the rear leg of this bee.