Our first hummingbird sighting of 2021 was in the third week of April. That’s within a week of when our first sighting usually is. The first hummingbird we saw was a male ruby-throat and about a week and a half later we saw our first female ruby-throat hummingbird. This also is how it usually happens for us.
Juvenile male ruby-throated hummingbird visiting our cardinal climber vine and porterweed
We had a lot of activity for 2 or 3 weeks and then it dropped off in visits when the hummingbirds started nesting. After the nesting time was over our hummingbird visits picked up. All of the hummingbird sightings stopped in the third week of September. This happens every year like clockwork. One thing that was different this year from other years was our hummingbirds didn’t go to our plants very often. They just went to the feeder and then left quickly. We figure the problem might have been a neighbor close by had put up a bird feeder that attracted a whole lot of sparrows. The sparrows chase after the hummingbirds. That may have been why they weren’t spending much time at our plants. Hopefully, it will be better next year.
Hummingbird molting looking a bit ragged.
Ruby-throated hummingbird feeding at our purple butterfly bush.
