I saw a ruby-throated hummingbird 2 days ago in Pennsylvania-they have not all flown south for the winter yet.
You do not need to take your hummingbird feeder in on Labor Day. It is a myth, an old wives’ tale and completely not true that if you leave your hummingbird feeder outside that you will prevent them from migrating south.
Labor Day & Hummingbird Feeders
The fires that scorched the Arizona wilderness earlier this summer critically impacted wild birds there, especially eleven Hummingbird species including several rare and unusual varieties that nest in the area. More than 30,000 acres of habitat in the Huachuca Mountains and more than 700,000 acres of habitat elsewhere in Arizona encompassing nesting sites, food sources - such as nectar and insects - and an important migratory route are significantly impacted. As birds flee the devastation in search of food, they crowd backyard feeders in unseasonably high numbers, making them vulnerable to stress, disease, and predators.
Habitat Destruction from Arizona Wildfires Handicaps Hummingbird Migration
This is a good article about hummingbirds:
One of the charms with hummingbirds is the opportunity to see them closely and often. If you feed them, you have probably noticed that populations boom in late summer. Successful broods are part of the reason. Mother hummingbirds usually lay two eggs, sometimes one, rarely three. Though only half of the youngsters survive the first year, most of those losses occur during the migration south.
Ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) must drink loads of nectar and eat many insects to build up fat reserves necessary to fuel their migratory flight first to the Gulf Coast then on to their tropical winter homes in Central America, southern Mexico or on some Caribbean islands. Males leave as much as a month before the females and fledglings who nest in that region follow them on the southern journey.
