06/03/12 Houston, Texas
I would like to respond to one observer's question about fewer hummers. We have been hearing hummers chirping in trees while outside early in the mornings. They are still migrating and are not stopping to feed on our feeders. We have a good idea why the count for Ruby-throats is low this year 2012. In Houston, being a pit stop, we only saw three pass through starting in April, Easter weekend, a day at a time for two weeks, along with the chirping detected. We were only able to observe in flight 3 males and one female. They usually stop and feed for 2-3 days. They didn't this year. Gary Clark nature,columnist in the Houston Chronicle replied that there are fewer hummers also this year. He reported that drought killed Black chins last year in the western parts of Texas. They were being observed dead on the ground. When the many Ruby-throats and Black chins that tried to migrate back last fall 2011 here, we all observed how thin Ruby-throats were. Not energetic fighting over feeders as much. The bug count that hummers need for survival was low during the drought also. This is heart breaking drought related. B.L. Housto