Hum, Hum, Hummertime

 By Keith Michael

There it is!

Like playing a highspeed video game, tracking hummingbirds takes visual alacrity. You’ve got to scan the periphery for the next flibbertigibbet zooming in, while simultaneously searching right in front of you for a blur of wings camouflaged amongst the foliage.

The end of summer is when it’s more likely to see hummingbirds around New York City. The local nesting birds have finished their job producing more hummingbirds to be seen at the same time as more birds from the entire east coast are moving through on their fall migration south.

Amazingly, hummingbirds not only head to the southern states to escape the brutal cold of our northern winters, but they keep right on going across the Gulf of Mexico to Central America. Weighing in at about as much as a penny, it seems unfathomable how they can pack in enough energy to fly 18-20 non-stop hours! That’s right: 18-20 non-stop hours. Once they’re on their way across that vast expanse of water, they can’t stop until they get to the other side. They can’t swim. Think about that. 

Of the 366 known hummingbird species in the world, the northeast has only one: the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It’s just the males that boast that namesake, iridescent ruby-colored jabot which can look satiny-black under certain light. The females and youngsters have a white throat and belly set off by an emerald green back. A few other wayward species may create a sensation from time to time in NYC, but the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds put on their own SRO shows.

Near the West Village, good places to wait to see them are the Church of St. Luke in the Fields Garden on Hudson Street, Central Park’s Shakespeare and Conservatory Gardens, the Heather Garden in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan, or anywhere a patch of orange-flowered jewelweed has sprung up. You may have the best luck where there is a concentration of tube-shaped flowers such as honeysuckle, salvia, beebalm, or trumpet vine. Zinnias are a favorite, too. My personal go-to place is Fort Tryon Park. Remember: waiting is an inseparable part of seeing hummingbirds. One would think that needing to consume at least three times their body weight every day to satisfy their high metabolism would require nearly back-to-back meals and in-between-meals snacks. Well, yes and no. They may need to procure nectar nearly constantly, but not necessarily where you are. They come and go. The best strategy is to simply stake out a likely location where they’re known to be seen—and wait. And wait. It may be ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes between a hummingbird’s fleeting, flamboyant, hovercraft appearances.

The waiting game need not be boring. Since you’re likely in a garden, in September it should be buzzing with bees and butterflies to enjoy. Ponder the phenomenon that the orange and black Monarch Butterflies entertaining you are preparing for their marathon migration to the mountains of Mexico for the winter. While you’re concerned about waiting out ten minutes of your time, that Monarch Butterfly, about the weight of a paperclip, is packing for its 3,000-mile flight ahead to a place it’s never been. Think about that while you’re counting the minutes.

Don’t miss the entr’acte before the great feeding show: the boisterous, aerial jousting matches of zooming hummingbirds competing for dinner reservations. Sometimes you’ll hear clicks and chirpy-chatters prefacing the duels. Listen for them. To me, the energy expended in these feather-raising chases, roundabouts, and dives seems wildly out of proportion to the resources being protected. Wouldn’t they all get more nectar if they just shared? Obviously, I’m not thinking like a hummingbird.

Most likely, to pass the time, there will be other birds to watch and listen for. Many adult birds are not as vocal at this time of year, but the late-season baby birds are. Listen for their variety of hungry chirps, thwacks, and peeps—GPS for their oh-too-slow parents to, “Feed-me-NOW!” Blue Jays, Cardinals, Catbirds, Carolina Wrens, and even Mockingbirds keep a low profile while finishing up their parenting so as not to draw attention to their sluggish offspring for waiting hawks.

See, you got distracted by all of those other things to look at, and you missed another high-powered, feisty, bejeweled hummingbird whizzing into view, throwing back a few shots at the flower bar, and…whoops. It’s gone.