LYKENS — “Nutmeg” may have been born with “bad software,” but she’s earned celebrity status at one Lykens woman’s home from birdwatchers and admirers alike.
Ethel Sherman had been seeing a rust-colored hummingbird visiting her birdfeeder at her 665 Main St. home since October. The bird was still there Tuesday.
Two certified bird banders, Scott Weidensaul and Sandy Lockerman, along with Sandy’s husband, Gary, made a positive identification of Sherman’s visitor Nov. 20 — she was a female rufous hummingbird. Weidensaul banded the bird by placing a tiny metal ring on her right leg.
Sherman said she named her Nutmeg because of her “rusty red colors.”
Potential information gleaned from the banding of the female rufous hummingbird may enable researchers to learn migratory patterns and behaviors of late migrants, like Nutmeg.
“I have seen at least two rufous hummingbirds and possibly three, since October 21,” said Sherman, who maintains a National Wildlife Federation certified habitat at her Lykens home.
“I have been tracking and reporting hummingbirds on the National Wildlife Federation site called ‘Journey North’ since April of 2007. I have been reporting on Nutmeg since October 21 of this year. She has been coming regularly since then, but more so lately to the nectar feeders, since insects, her main diet, are becoming less available, due to the cold temperatures.
“I have been requested by birders to come and get a glimpse of the beautiful rufous hummingbird that graces my backyard habitat. Nutmeg has become a celebrity. The only thing is this; there is no guarantee that she will be here much longer. She could leave tomorrow, in December, or even as late as March. Only Nutmeg will know the answer to that. God has blessed me greatly with Nutmeg. I pray, and ask others to pray, that she be kept safe,” Sherman said.
A contact from “Journey North” put Sherman in touch with Weidensaul and fellow bird banders.
Sherman had people visiting her home from Mountaintop and State College, who were interested in seeing Nutmeg, she said. Sherman’s habitat has also attracted the white breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, red wing blackbird, cardinal, blue jay, house finch, purple finch, gold finch, Carolina wren and barn swallow.
According to Weidensaul, an author and naturalist, spotting the rufous hummingbird in this part of Pennsylvania at this time of year isn’t as rare as it used to be.
At one time it was extremely unusual, but in the past 20 years — and especially in the past decade — rufous hummers have become regular fall and winter visitors to Pennsylvania, he said.
“Rufous breed in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and normally migrate south in western and central Mexico, but a tiny percentage of the population is, in essence, born with bad software — the genetic programming for migration orientation. Instead of flying south, these birds head east. A century or two ago, they would likely have been pruned quickly out of the gene pool because the climate was much colder and their landscape very different. Today, these birds, especially those that continue south into the Gulf of Mexico region, overwinter easily and pass those ‘bad’ genes on to a new generation.”
The numbers vary quite a bit, he said.
“I was the first person to start banding winter hummingbirds in Pennsylvania in 2001. There are now six of us, and for the next decade or more we saw a steady increase in reports. Most reports come in from October through December, in past, I suspect, because many times people don’t notice that they have an unusual hummer mixed in with their normal ruby-throated hummingbirds that breed here, or because they don’t try to get in touch with someone until the weather gets cold and they start to worry about the bird’s welfare,” Weidensaul said.
“The peak came in the winter of 2013-14, when we had 95 western hummingbirds of several species, primarily rufous, of which we banded 48. The past two years have been much slower — eight or nine reports. Talking with banders in the breeding range in the Pacific Northwest, we think this may be connected to poor breeding seasons there, but we’re not sure. The exceptional cold the past two winters may have had something to do with it, but these birds are very cold hardy.”
Rufous hummingbirds can stay throughout the winter in Pennsylvania, according to Weidensaul.
“We’ve had a couple dozen over the years that have overwintered. Most, though, are gone between Thanksgiving and Christmas, presumably moving south toward the Gulf states, where the bulk of them pass the winter,” he said.
“They’re incredibly cold-hardy — rufous hummingbirds, for example, breed at very high elevations in the western mountains, and as far north as south-central Alaska. They have the ability to drop into a deep hibernation — like torpor every night, conserving a great deal of energy — their body temperature drops from 104 F to about 50 F, for instance. That means they can easily handle sub-freezing conditions, and even sub-zero lows for at least a few nights. For example, when the so-called polar vortex hit in January 2014, we had at least 13 rufous hummingbirds still on winter territory in Pennsylvania, and we know at least seven of them survived that cold blast, and all left soon thereafter. One near State College survived air temps of -9 F and wind chills of -36 F, which is the lowest documented temperature any hummingbird is known to have survived.”
“I’m not sure when Ethel’s hummer will leave,” he said. “I’d expect it to be fairly soon, but there’s no way to distinguish a bird that will try to overwinter here from one that won’t. I think that to an extent, some of these birds are genetically programmed to stay as far north as possible — the way a lot of ducks and geese are — and they only push farther south once the weather gets really cold and snowy. If it’s a mild winter, those birds may stay the whole season.”
“One thing that people worry about needlessly; the presence of a feeder won’t alter their migratory behavior. It’s a convince for the bird, but not an anchor,” Weidensaul said. Even in winter, 60 to 70 percent of their diet is tiny insects, spiders and other arthropods, he noted.
There are benefits to catching and banding such birds. The females of some species (especially rufous and Allen’s hummingbird from coastal California) are almost identical, and can only be identified with certainty in the hand, Weidensaul said. By putting a tiny band with a unique serial number on the bird, researchers can identify it as an individual, which allows them to track its movements if it’s found or recaptured.
“For example, a couple of years ago I caught a male rufous hummingbird in Northampton County that was already banded — it had been banded by my colleague Nancy Newfield the previous winter in Louisiana. Similarly, we’ve had a number of hummingbirds that we banded one year have reappeared the following winter, and we could confirm their identity. And we can track their sometimes unexpected movements. For example, in January 2004, a custodian found a dead hummingbird under a window at Williams Valley High School; it had been banded two months earlier by a colleague of mine at the Ripley Garden at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Why it flew north in winter we don’t know, but the band proved it had done so.”
Weidensaul said researchers also take a series of measurements, including the bird’s weight. All that data goes into a central computer database maintained by the federal Bird Banding Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which can be accessed at www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/.
Weidensaul encourages homeowners to keep at least one feeder up until at least Thanksgiving every year in hopes of attracting one of these late migrants. If they see a hummingbird at their feeder after the middle of October, they can email him at his website, or if they want to learn more information on western hummers in Pennsylvania, they can visit www.scottweidensaul.com/hummingbirds/.
His newest book, The Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean, has just been released.
Weidensaul will also present “Owls, Soul of the Night” program at 7 p.m. Wedensday at The Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art, Millersburg. The program will unlock many of the secrets of owl biology and ecology.
Weidensaul said Rob Protz in western Pennsylvania also maintains a Pennsylvania winter hummingbird site with photos and details on each bird at www.pahummers.tripod.com.