-- HUMMINGBIRD Q & A --
Behavior #1

• In spring, the female Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) has the responsibility to construct her nest without assistance from the male. She spends several days gathering spiderwebs and soft plant parts to build the tiny cup-shaped nest. When nearly finished, she adorns the outside with bits of gray-green lichen that camouflage the nest; the nest is lined with plant down. When she was flying around the eaves of your house, she was probably collecting spiderwebs and--quite possibly--making a meal of the protein- and fat-rich spiders that made them.

2. If I don't have my feeders up in the spring, sometimes a hummingbird will hover outside the window where the feeder was last year. Could this be the same bird remembering where the feeder was?

• It easily could be the same bird. Individual hummingbirds often show a high degree of "site fidelity"; that is, they come back to the same location year after year. Of the 3,246 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) banded prior to 2006 at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History near York, South Carolina USA, 11.6% (377 individuals) returned in at least one later year. It is nothing less than amazing that these tiny birds may fly more than a thousand miles each way during migration and still manage to find the same location where they spent the preceding summer. In February 2006, Bill Hilton Jr. of Operation RubyThroat and Hilton Pond Center recaptured an adult male in Costa Rica in the same locale where he had banded it in February 2005. This is the first evidence RTHUs are also faithful to sites on their wintering grounds.

3. One of my hummingbirds rubs his bill against branches; is he trying to sharpen his bill? (Thanks to Bettjo of Collierville TN for submitting this question.)

• Bill-wiping is a common behavior among birds, including Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Archilochus colubris. This serves several functions, the most important of which is to keep the bill clean. In hummingbirds, for example, bill-wiping keeps pollen from caking up on the bill, and it removes excess nectar or sugar water that might develop mold. In our experience it is also a "displacement activity." Often when we release just-banded birds of various species, they fly to a tree and bill-wipe, likely because they don't know what else to do after the unusual experience of being captured, handled, and banded. We also suspect that in some species bill-wiping displaces more violent interaction when two birds have a territorial dispute; just as irritated bulls paw the ground and snort rather than charging, so may birds do something similar. An actual charge or fight could easily result in injury, so the bill-wipe may "displace" those activities and "call the bluff" of the less-dominant bird.

4. Are hummingbirds nocturnal; i.e., are they active at night?

• Typically, hummingbirds feed heavily in morning and evening hours and settle in about a half hour or so before dark. In some locations--especially if there is artifical lighting such as security or porch light--hummingbirds may feed well into the night, usually during warmer weather. Hummingbirds DO fly at night, but almost always this happens during migration. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Archilochus colubris, have been seen leaving locales such as Rockport TX at dusk to head across the Gulf of Mexico. Since this 500-mile trip takes about 20 hours, it's apparent hummers must spend at least some of that time flying in the dark. (NOTE: If feeders that were full at dusk are empty in the morning, the likely culprits are not hummingbirds but Raccoons, Opossums, Southern Flying Squirrels, White-tailed Deer, bears, and--in the southwestern U.S.--nectar-eating bats.)

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