Date: 08/21/2023

Number: 20

Our Rubies continue to put on their summer show for us, which is always such a delight. We have at least 3 adult resident males, as well as many adult females, and a large number of juveniles. It's very difficult, and honestly, seemingly impossible to count them all. Our estimate of 20 is a conservative figure. We have 11 feeders spread throughout the front, back, and side yards. We also have an assortment of gardens full of hummingbird flowers. Favorites this year include Cuphea vermillionaire, several varieties of porter weed, many different varieties of Salvia, Shrimp Plant, Major Wheeler's honeysuckle, Dicliptera, Gartenmeister Fuchsia, red Lobelia, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting right now. All of these are hummingbird magnets for us. I would recommend these to anyone who is interested in starting a hummingbird garden. We have many others, including several different varieties of butterfly bush, Nasturtium, Tithonia, Lantana, Pentas, Tourenia, and others that are visited as well by the hummingbirds, but to a lesser extent. We have some flowers that are rarely or seemingly untouched, such as Geranium, Verbena, Begonia, Calendula, Marigold, etc. We have a tremendous number of other pollinators as well, including bumblebees, butterflies, and honeybees. If you wish to plant for them, they love some of those I've already listed, particularly as many different Salvias as you can grow, but also Joe Pye weed and lots of varieties of Agastache. Their favorite here is Blue Fortune. We have pollinator perennials as well that bloom at different times from spring to fall. Many of our perennials here are done for the year, but we do have some that we're still waiting on such as Jewelweed and Turk's cap. Our favorite new perennial that we planted and grew this year was the Obedient plant. I highly recommend that one. We have lots of bunnies out in the gardens, so some perennials are impossible to keep here, as the sweet bunnies love and devour them, especially Asters, Coneflowers, Black eyed Susans, and Coreopsis. We have learned to share.

Our adult male and adult female Rubies are conserving their energy as they are all currently molting. They do not join in constant chase with all the juveniles, who seem to have endless energy. We've had a very hot summer here, with more days than not either hitting 90 degrees or coming very close. This week is forecast to be exeptionally hot, with many days set to be in the 90s and one day which may get close to 100 degrees. On hot days, even the juveniles appear to settle down during the heat of the day and conserve their energy for chasing and playing to mornings and evenings. This summer, thank goodness, has not been nearly has dry as the two previous years, which has been a tremendous blessing. We are, however, in the midst of a dry spell and haven't had any rain in 10 days and none appears to be on the forecast this week as well.

Our adult male Rubies always head out on migration first, usually between the 6th and 14th of September. It takes a month for all the adult females and juveniles to follow suit. They leave in staggered departures. Last year, our last juvenile, who was a female, didn't leave until October 15th. And interestingly, within 2 weeks, we had our first ever Rufous arrive. He stayed with us all winter and didn't depart until late March. We'll see what happens this year. It's always such a bittersweet experience to see our Rubies leave. We know they have to go, but we sure do miss them.

Kernersville, NC

Latitude: 36.1 Longitude: -80.1

Observed by: Sophie
Contact Observer

The observer's e-mail address will not be disclosed.
Contact will be made through a web-based form.