Tank Town

By Joel Thurtell

Tank Town -- Hummingbird re-fueling station. Joel Thurtell photo.

Love to watch hummingbirds?

Hummers feeding, hummers making war — it’s one of my favorite sports.

For years at our Michigan home, I hung a nectar feeder under the eave of our house. It got so I’d hang several around the house, so we could watch these little buzzers from most any room of the house.

My favorite spot — just outside our big back window, where I could watch the birds whiz in while I took it easy reading the newspaper on the couch.

I think of April as a good month to put the feeders out. But there were seasons when I’d forget or procrastinate, and maybe it would be June by the time I got around to putting up a feeder.

I always wondered, How late in the hummingbird season can you put up  a feeder and hope to attract rubythroats?

I got my answer this year.

We spent the season in Canada. Among the chattels we purchased with our cottage in McGregor Bay were seven hummingbird feeders. Our predecessors, Ian and Joan Burney, must have loved watching these amazing birds, too. I found hooks they’d hung from trees, one near the bunk house and one near the cottage, and figured they were meant for feeding the hummers.

Over the course of the summer, the hummers learned they could rely on me to keep several feeders full of sugar-water.

Nothing magic about the formula — a quarter cup of sugar for a cup of water. Usually, I make a big batch, heating eight cups of water to nearly a boil with two cups of sugar. I stir a bit towards the end, making sure I can’t see any cloudiness, which tells me the sugar is suspended in the water. After cooling, I pour it through a funnel into my plastic feeders.

Our island and its insular neighbors have big populations of hummers. I’d watch birds zoom across Eaton’s Channel from Garden or Vim islands, no doubt having plundered feeders at Zoe McDougall’s place or maybe even farther north at Donna Zajonc’s. Some flew in from the east, maybe after slurping nectar at Marshall and Sue Morrow’s cottage on Burnt Island.

Lots of hummers. They paid no attention to me, buzzing close enough to make me wonder if to them I even existed.

Wonderful territorial duels took place while I sat or stood a few feet from the feeders and watched pairs squabble over feeding rights. A couple of hummers would tear away from the feeder and shoot 30 feet high, peeping their staccato cries and maintaining a tight formation just a couple inches from each other.

At home in Michigan, though, my friends the hummers were getting nothing from me this season. I felt bad about that, but had no way of filling feeders when I was an 11-hour drive away.

When I got home, though, there was still time in the hummer season. I decided to find out how late I could put nectar out and attract hummers.

Hummer finds Tank Town. Joel Thurtell photo.

Oh yes, I did find out. Late the morning of Sunday, August 28, I hung two feeders from our eaves. Less than two hours later, a hummer zeroed in on one of the feeders. For all I know, they might have been hitting the feeders right after I put them out, since I wasn’t exactly keeping a steady watch.

Well, if two feeders would bring one bird, maybe more feeders would attract a flock. By the end of that day, I’d hung five feeders.

Unlike the Bay, there was no constant parade of hummers to my feeders. No battles royal, no aerial dogfights, no buzzing of the proprietor as if he were a nonentity.

But they’ve been coming. We see them often, and fluid levels in several of the feeders are going down.

Pretty soon, the hummers will depart for Mexico. My hope is that my little tank town will help fatten them for that long flight over the Gulf of Mexico.

I’m pleased that they found me, or rather, the little nourishment I could provide.

A couple years ago, in Michigan, I watched hummers all summer long as they tapped our feeders. The latest I saw a hummer come in for a feed was on October 7 of 2008. It’s September 9 today. I figure I’ve got a bit less than a month of hummer watching before these amazing little creatures are gone for the season.

By the way, I’m not worried that my feeding will somehow disrupt their departure. Their internal clocks will tell them when it’s time to head south.Unlike us humans, hummers know when to back away from a free lunch.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com