Expect to see more visitors at your feeder.
Millions of hummingbirds are making their way south to Mexico and Central America/ The non-stop flight takes nearly 24 hour, and covers 500 to 600 miles. For the western United States, the Rufous hummingbird holds the record for longest migration path, from as far north as Alaska into Central America.
If you want to see more hummingbirds in your garden, now is the time to coax them.
At the peak of migration, bird studies indicate that, with very few exceptions, the hummingbirds that visit feeders on any given late-summer day are completely replaced by new migrants within a day. To estimate a total number of hummingbirds using your feeders daily, multiply times five. For example, if you see 10 hummingbirds at your feeder at one time, you have about 50 passing through your yard that day.
Hummingbirds feed on flower nectar, insects and the sugar-water solution we put in hummingbird feeders. Despite popular belief, hummingbirds do not suck up nectar with their bills, but lap it up with their tongues, drawing nectar from the source up into their mouths almost 12 times per second.
A high-calorie diet is important to sustain a hummingbird’s active lifestyle, especially during migration season when they need to build up fat reserves. Hummingbirds possess the fastest metabolism of any warm-blooded animal on the planet, consuming up to twice their body weight in nectar every day