Tag: ruby-throated-hummingbird

Late Summer

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A male Ruby-throated hummingbird inspects some blooms at the edge of a small wooded area in Iroquois County.

August 9, 2022 – The August landscape in the midwest is a palette of joy and inspiration that can make the most iron-clad cynic forget their desperate solitude to frolic like a child with unfettered jubilation in the wonder of nature, freeing themselves from those worries in life while rejuvenating their existence. Backyard gardens, parks, and prairies are alive and full of pollinators like wasps, bumblebees, butterflies, and hummingbirds going from flower to flower, some so heavily laden with pollen that they are barely able to fly as they stay focused on their task at hand. Young birds are now foraging for themselves but are still not far from their parents and siblings. A young Gray catbird preens on a barely visible but convenient and sunny perch in an overgrown bush at the edge of a thicket. Four young Blue-gray gnatcatchers fly in and out of view high in the tree canopy, searching every leaf and branch as they chase the tiny winged insects for a well-earned meal.
Young Ruby-throated hummingbirds have taken over the best food sources in the neighborhood. They guard and chase away other hummingbirds who are also trying to feed on the nectar from a cornucopia of alluring fragrances and blooms, including the sugary feeders that hang in numbers around the backyard garden retreats provided by human hosts. Hummingbird feeders are well cleaned and maintained weekly by nature lovers who look forward to the arrival of the long-distance summer migrants that spend the nesting season here in Northern Illinois. The simple recipe for hummingbird feeders is one cup of granulated sugar dissolved into four cups of boiled water, put in the refrigerator, and cooled before filling feeders. Do not use red dye in your feeders! It is not needed to attract hummingbirds and may be harmful. It is good practice to clean feeders before each refill at least once a week to provide safe mold-free sugar water for the hummingbirds. It is always amazing to think about how far these tiny birds travel to end up in our backyards and natural areas here in Northern Illinois for the summer. Most of the Ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit the Midwest spend the winter in Central America, migrating across the Gulf of Mexico. The beautiful Ruby-throated hummingbird is the only hummingbird that nests in the Eastern half of the United States. I often think how lucky we are to have these little jewels spend the summer with us.

A female Ruby-throated hummingbird visits each flower of the “red birds in a tree” plant with graceful precision.

Small Birds and Big Winds

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A Ruby-throated Hummingbird takes time to stretch and preen on a perch near a feeder the day after the violent derecho.

August 20, 2020 – August 10th brought a weather event across the Midwest that I will not soon forget. The National Weather Service describes the storm as a long-lasting severe wind thunderstorm complex known as a derecho, with much of the winds at 75+ mph. By the afternoon, sometime after 3:00, the air felt hot, humid, and very heavy. I thought how lucky I was to have air conditioning, as I stepped back into the house from checking for mail. Little did I know, the cool air I was enjoying would soon end with a power outage that would last for days. It wasn’t long until things started to change as some darker clouds began to roll in, bringing some swirling winds to the treetops. Those winds didn’t seem so bad. A little before 4:00 pm I was looking out the kitchen window and could see the birds at the feeders and some squirrels that were busy with a new crop of walnuts next door. Hummingbirds were defending their territory, vigorously chasing intruders away from the feeders when the high winds struck. The birds and squirrels cleared the area as the winds became seriously stronger and within seconds the true nature of the derecho was revealed. The giant sycamore in the backyard was being shaken violently like a little toy, it’s large limbs snapping and dropping to the ground, taking out the electric and covering my truck in debris. I have to admit fear and some confusion was orbiting my thoughts while overloading my rational thinking and preventing me from retreating to the basement. If I was living in ancient Greece, in the time of Homer, I would be absolutely convinced that all four of the gods of the winds were involved and very angry at me for something. Soon though, the weather began to ease and when it seemed the storm had passed I cautiously ventured outside to inspect the damage and it was a bit shocking to see how fast things can change. I noticed that I was not the only one inspecting the backyard, Hummingbirds could be seen hovering over fallen limbs and debris. They were going from one limb to the next as if they were investigating those new things that earlier were not there, the landscape had definitely changed. By the next afternoon, with lots of hard work, the yard appeared much like it did before the storm, except for a damaged truck, broken fence, and electrical wires hanging down. House finches, Nut hatches, sparrows, and Hummingbirds appeared to be back to their normal routine seemingly unfazed, taking up where they left off before the storm. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are one of the smallest birds to visit North America and are a long-distance migrant that travels all the way from Mexico and Central America each spring and back again by early fall, flying non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico. Watching those Hummingbirds really made me think, in the wake of the violent storm, about the many obstacles and dangers that these tiny birds, weighing in at about 0.12 oz., must encounter in their life. The dangers are many for the little hummingbirds, from reptilians, insects, to birds of prey, but now we can add one more challenge to that list, and that is the derecho after the devastation of the August inland hurricane of 2020 that visited Illinois.

With an increase in Hummingbirds to the yard after the storm a Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovers near a feeder chasing away intruders.

Orange Jewelweed

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Ruby-Throated hummingbird

A Ruby-Throated hummingbird hovers at the flower of a Jewelweed plant. The bird picks up pollen on the top of its’ beak and face as it laps up nectar from inside the bloom.

September 10, 2018 – The remarkable native plant Orange Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) goes by many names like spotted, common, spotted touch-me-not and orange balsam. The Jewelweed grows in most counties in Illinois and prefers moist and partly shaded areas. It thrives in low marshy ground, along creeks and trails and the damp areas in and along the forest edge. Appearing like hundreds of tiny silvered-glass mirrors glistening in the morning light, the delicate droplets of condensation that cover the leafs and flowers of a large patch of Orange Jewelweed will cause any traveler to stop and take notice. Blooming from mid-summer until a hard frost the showy flowers of the Jewelweed, with their red-orange speckles and a beautifully curved spur, attract butterflies, bees and other small insects that are in-search of that glorious nectar.

Orange Jewelweed

The flowers of the Orange Jewelweed attract many type of insects like this Viceroy butterfly
and the small Sweat bee on the flowers drooping petal.

It is not unusual to see high numbers of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, one of the main pollinators of the Jewelweed, busily going from flower to flower through the thick growth of the yellow bounty. When it comes to the season for the Orange Jewelweed to bloom Hummingbirds will certainly be seen in these semi-shaded areas perched at the tip of a long tree branch extending out and over the nectar rich plants. The tiny birds will commandeer a small sapling or tall bush surrounded by the Jewelweed while they vigorously guard their claimed part of the patch. Directly from our planets botanical pharmacy and well-known for generations by the Native Americans, the sap and leaves from the Jewelweed plant have apparent medicinal uses. Jewelweed can be used as a topical ointment for poison ivy, oak and the itching and pain caused by hives, stinging nettle, insect bites and other skin irritations. The sap has also been used as a successful to

Reference:

“Orange Jewelweed (Impatiens Capensis).” Touch-Me-Not family (Balsaminaceae) www.illinoiswildflowers.info/wetland/plants/or_jewelweed.htm.

“For Your Garden – June 2015.” Education, www.dnr.illinois.gov/education/Pages/FYGJun2015.aspx.

“Impatiens Capensis.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Sept. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_capensis.

“Plant of the Week.” Johnston Ridge Observatory | US Forest Service, www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/impatiens_capensis.shtml.

pical anti-fungal treatment.

Ruby-throated hummingbird

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Ruby-throated hummingbird

Male Ruby-throated hummingbird

– A tiny male Ruby-throated hummingbird seems to hold a classical pose for the camera as it stretches it wings back spreading its’ tail feathers in the low light shadows of the morning sun. The summer visitors to the eastern half of North America for the breeding season will be migrating south in late August and will be gone by late October.