I was replacing the frozen hummingbird feeder with a thawed one and a hummingbird jumped on it before I could put it up. The frozen one is inside thawing now. Our thermometer says it's minus 5C (23F) outside. There's 6 or so centimeters of snow outside. It looks like it may be a male Rufous hummingbird, or a female Anna's Humming bird. Please comment if you can confirm the species.
(5 votes)
Comments
(sounds retarded)
Poor little fella, why is he still that far north?
(Old Spike)
To fly south from here it would have to cross the Salish Sea to get to the Olympic Peninsula. The shortest crossing distance is about 18 kilometres (about 12 miles),
(Old Spike)
In Belgium we don't have hummingbirds, the only ones i have seen where in the rain forrest in South America, i thought they where tropical, and needed constant blooming flowers to survive, these can winter over, beautiful creatures.
I think the best would be to give them liquid honey with a few drops of water, it would not freeze that easy
(Old Spike)
The feeder has water and hummingbird mix, which is mostly sucrose sugar. Some use just sucrose and water. Several sites say not to use honey, as some bacteria that are dangerous to the hummingbirds can grow in the honey water. Some sights also say to avoid brown sugar or molasses.
(sounds retarded)
You are replicating a flower, flowers dont create honey or molasses. Its just a water mixture with some sugar(sucrose). Hummingbirds are supposed to migrate. That little guy must have slept in. He probably wont make it. They need to feed constantly.
(Old Spike)
"Unlike most North American hummingbirds, Anna’s Hummingbirds either don’t migrate or else migrate a very short distance to better feeding grounds."
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Annas_Hummingbird/maps-range
(sounds retarded)
Huh, cool! Didnt know that. Makes sense though, some parts of the west coast are considered a rainforest.
(Old Spike)
It captured my mind and looked it up
Under - taxonomie
You can see most species
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolibries#Leefgebied