ARE HUMMINGBIRDS IN TROUBLE?
(EVEN IF NOT, YOU CAN STILL HELP)

Under the tutelage of Dr. Harrison B. Tordoff--our graduate advisor at the University of Minnesota--we spent three very long, very cold, very dark winters studying the behavioral ecology of Blue Jays. The esteemed Dr. Tordoff held a master permit with the U.S. federal Bird Banding Laboratory, to which--through him--we submitted all our jay data. When we returned to South Carolina to continue a teaching and research career, we applied for our own master permit; it came in June 1982 just as we arrived at what is now Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History. We immediately set out some traps and on the 28th captured and banded our first bird at the Center--a female Common Grackle with an active brood patch. Since then we've banded 909 more grackles and a grand total of 76,233 birds from 128 species!

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

Our initial master permit allowed us to band songbirds, raptors, and a few other avian groups--but not hummingbirds, which require tiny numbered bands that must be formed one-by-one using special tools. (Let's just say hummingbird banding is both a science and an art.) We acquired the tools (above), studied techniques for hummer banding, and eventually received our hummingbird authorization in July 1984. At that time there were only a few dozen authorized and active hummer banders in the U.S. and a lot of them were studying one or more of the many western species rather than Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (RTHU).

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

At that point our main reason for wanting a hummingbird permit was simple: We wondered how many ruby-throats (adult male, above) were coming to our feeders at Hilton Pond, and about the only way to get a handle on numbers of these fast-moving balls of fluff was to band and release them. That first summer of '84 we speculated we had about two dozen RTHU feeding from our sugar water feeders but within five days had trapped or netted and banded an amazing 75 individuals! (This led to our maxim "You probably have at least three times more hummers than you think"--a rule of thumb borne out at several locations where we've banded RTHU.) The rest is history, and we've been banding Ruby-throated Hummingbirds ever since, including this, our 39th year of hummer studies.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
(Click on chart above for a larger version in a new browser window)

As we post this photo essay for 1-15 July it's still very early in the 2022 hummingbird banding season; in a typical year we capture three-fourths of our ruby-throats AFTER mid-July. (That's when the latest crop of young birds begin to outnumber adults by a wide margin.) This year thus far is exceptional, with 73 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds already banded through 15 July, as noted on our first bar chart above.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
(Click on chart above for a larger version in a new browser window)

The real significance of 73 RTHU banded through 15 July isn't actually revealed by that first bar chart, however, but when you look at our "spaghetti graph" (just above) you get an understanding of what's so exceptional about our current banding season. Each of the colored lines above shows the cumulative total aswe banded new hummers each year at Hilton Pond Center, graphed on the horizontal axis by date and the vertical axis by number of birds. The YELLOW line for 2015 stands out immediately; that year we got off to so fast a start it was shocking, out-pacing all previous years and hitting the 64 mark in late June--far earlier than before. The banding rate did eventually slow down that year, but we still had our fifth-best season with 246 RTHU. (Compare that to the solid red line for the following year--2016--when after an average start we inexplicably blew the top off with 373 ruby-throat bandings--morethan double our average!)

Unlike 2015, the current season (dashed RED line above) started much more slowly but picked up around the end of May. By 11 July we hit the 64 mark and closed out the first half of July this year with nine more RTHU to bring the tally to 73. This makes the current year the most productive through this date in our 39-year study of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds at Hilton Pond Center.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
(Click on chart above for a larger version in a new browser window)

Incidentally, 2022 has also been a good one for recaptures of ruby-throats banded in previous years at Hilton Pond (see bar chart just above). Through mid-July we've had 44 returns--already our seventh-best season--well above our 39-year average of 29 and with plenty of time left for more.

So what do all these data points mean? To begin with, we know--based on actual numbers--we've had an unprecedented year of hummingbird banding through this week, something that gives us special satisfaction after nearly four decades of studying RTHU at the Center. Perhaps more important is something shown on the first and third bar charts above: A dashed red trend line (which see) indicates a significant increase over a 39-year span for both new AND returning Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Based on our data from Hilton Pond, it would appear ruby-throats are doing just fine as a species and that their population could actually be increasing--at least locally.

This supposition is a bit different from what some other Ruby-throated Hummingbird banders are saying and also appears to contradict an in-depth analysis done by Simon G. English, et al. (2021, Current contrasting population trends among North American hummingbirds). That group's review of several North American hummingbird species showed most have been in decline in recent years, including RTHU (see chart at right). Oddly, according to English, ruby-throat populations overall showed an annual increase of 1.2% per year from 1970 until 2021, but a decline of 9.5% overall in the more recent ten-year period 2009-2019. Their conclusion was that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds appear to be in trouble.

That said, English drew his conclusions using data from established Breeding Bird Surveys conducted over almost 50 years. This technique involves making stops every half-mile over a predetermined 24.5-mile route during the spring nesting season while looking and listening for avian species (including Ruby-throated Hummingbirds).

Surveying hummingbirds in the field by sight and sound to us seems difficult at best because of the birds' size and relatively quiet vocalizations (and wing buzzes); chances of stumbling across a nest on the route are highly unlikely. It would be easy to miss breeding hummingbirds in any given year, but that should average out through the many times Breeding Bird Surveys have been conducted. Although conclusions by English et al. have value, we think a better indicator of the wellness of Ruby-throated Hummingbird populations is to look at population changes during long-term studies at specific sites. Some banders are doing this already, and it's exactly how we've been operating at Hilton Pond Center since July 1984.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

Since we decided early on not to restrict natural habitat changes at the Center, vegetational succession has taken our 11-acre property from being mostly open farmland to a young mixed forest. It's hard to know just how this transition from agricultural land to more "natural" habitat might have influenced local hummingbird numbers, but it's quite likely our current profusion of Trumpet Creeper (above) and our battery of well-stocked hummingbird feeders is more attractive to ruby-throats than those earlier cultivated fields of corn, cotton, and tobacco.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

Despite local habitat changes, our procedure for attracting and capturing hummingbirds has been fairly constant for the past 39 years. We provide six sugar water feeders (above) in various styles starting mid-March, then tripling that number in mid-July when local Ruby-throated Hummingbirds begin to increase dramatically; contents are kept fresh until late October when the last RTHU have departed. (NOTE: A few feeders are well-maintained through the winter just in case any of the western vagrant hummers show up--as has happened thrice.) Feeders are all situated in a half-acre area surrounding the Center's old farmhouse.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

We sample the Center's hummingbird population the same way year-to-year, using a complement of eight mist nets in shaded locales and variety of passive, electronic, and pull-string traps (above) baited with sugar water feeders. On days when we are at Hilton Pond (note from our bar charts above that some summers we were absent for significant periods) we deploy traps and mist nets dawn to dusk except during inclement weather (including rain, excessive wind, and temperatures above 95°F). Preferring to sample just our local ruby-throat population, we don't visit other locales--although a multi-site protocol is reportedly used with good results by some other hummingbird banders. (It's worth noting those particular banders and their teams capture far more RTHU than we do. Small numbers notwithstanding, what we have going for us is a long-term study at the Center covering 39 years.)

So why might Ruby-throated Hummingbird populations be getting smaller during Breeding Bird Surveys but increasing at Hilton Pond Center? Like many natural phenomena, its often difficult to assess cause and effect, but we hypothesize it's all about habitat change--including along Breeding Bird Survey routes. As natural areas historically frequented by RTHU come under development or are otherwise altered or destroyed, we suspect hummingbirds have gravitated toward humans who provide artificial and natural foods in the form of sugar water feeders and cultivated nectar plants. Some hummingbird species don't take so well to these "unnatural" oases, but opportunistic Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are generalists that don't specialize in limited varieties of food sources. RTHU also seem to get along pretty well with people. In some ways, it may be ruby-throats are becoming "The Hummingbirds of Suburbia."

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
Photo above © Joost Daniels, courtesy National Wildlife Federation

Therein lies one problem that needs mention: Suburbia is a highly altered habitat and one that humans don't always like to share with wildlife. Oh, folks do love their hummingbirds, but many don't like mosquitoes and gnats and fruit flies and spiderlings and all those other little invertebrates that likely are more important fare for hummingbirds than nectar and feeder carbohydrates. To keep the bugs away folks spray insecticides that effectively eliminate protein-rich food items hummers catch (above) and absolutely require to maintain their own metabolisms and to build baby hummingbirds. It doesn't do ruby-throats much good if you offer sugar water but also try to kill every bug in your yard. (Thus endeth the sermon.)

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

We don't know what the future holds for the 350 or so hummingbird species found in the Western Hemisphere. Some are super-specialists occupying small, unique habitats that, if lost, will result in a quick and permanent end to those species. Others may be able to adapt to changing environment--as long as that change doesn’t come too rapidly, especially at the hand of humans.

For Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in particular an even greater world view is necessary because they're long-distance migrants that spend half the year with us in the eastern U.S. and Canada but fan out each fall into Mexico and all ten countries of Central America. (A female ruby-throat, above, feeds on tropical tree flowers during one of our Operation RubyThroat January expeditions to Costa Rica.) Thus, we can protect all the habitat we want in North America, but if prime habitats are lost on the southern end "our" ruby-throats are toast. To belabor the obvious, RTHU need habitat protected on BOTH ends of the migratory path, and along the entire route as well.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
Hummer habitat photo above © Jim White, courtesy hummingbird-guide.com

Meanwhile, we hope our readers will do their part. Don't use insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, or artificial fertilizers. Ever! Get rid of that hopelessly unnatural grassy lawn. Plant diverse native species of hummingbird flowers, from herbaceous plants to vines to trees and shrubs. Provide places for hummers to nest and hide. (No, DON'T buy one of those cylindrical wooden "hummingbird houses" that are all the rage on Facebook and Amazon. Hummers are NOT cavity nesters!) Put in a water feature that helps attract insects. Hang and properly maintain sugar water feeders (4:1 water:sugar, change every fourth day in summer, NO red food coloring!). Do all this and you're essentially guaranteed to have more hummers than "Joe Down The Road" whose front yard looks like a sterile putting green--even if he does have feeders. And you DO want hummingbird bragging rights, don't you? (NOTE: Mid-July is not even close to being too late to get started on your new hummingbird habitat. After all, August and early September are when you'll typically have the most Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.)

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
McKinley & Hadley photos (2017) courtesy their father, Billy Hilton III

To close, we're excited our 2022 RTHU banding is progressing at record pace, although we acknowledge our numbers at Hilton Pond Center might not reflect ruby-throat population trends across the species' entire range. We'll have to wait until October so determine how successful this year really has been for us, and likely even longer to learn how RTHU are doing as a species in North America during breeding season and throughout the Neotropics the rest of the year. For now, we're hopeful the apparent trend of more Ruby-throated Hummingbirds year-to-year at Hilton Pond Center since 1984 is a true indicator the species is doing okay and will be around for future generations of hummingbird enthusiasts--and our bird bander grandchildren--to enjoy.

POSTSCRIPT: And if you don't mind our saying so, one other thing you can do to help hummingbirds it support organizations with active research programs that provide even better understanding of hummer population dynamics. That includes not-for-profit Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History, of course, and its on-going Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project. Please donate if you can.

Via credit card at

Or thru PayPal & Venmo via funding@HiltonPond.org

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

ANOTHER PODCAST FOR "THE BACKYARD NATURALISTS"

Our work at Hilton Pond Center was showcased recently on "The Backyard Naturalists," a podcast started last September out of the Charlotte area. We also recorded a follow-up installment that provides lots of info about hummingbirds. To hear our latest interview with hosts Debbie and Laurie, just click on the image below for the 11 June 2022 edition.

Happy listening!

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

HILTON POND SUNSETS
(from our on-going series)

"Never trust a person too lazy to get up for sunrise
or too busy to watch the sunset." --BHjr

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

Sunset over Hilton Pond, 13 July 2022

Fire in the sky, fire on the water.

Don't forget to scroll down for lists of Hilton Pond supporters and of all birds banded and recaptured during the period.

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