Hummers Still Around

For the last couple of days I have been watching a hummingbird at the feeder. On Friday morning we had our first hard freeze and I woke up early in the morning thinking about the glass feeder I still had outside, worrying that it might be frozen and cracked. So I got up and brought it inside; the contents were frozen but the feeder hadn't cracked.

As it was getting light I watched outside and saw the hummer buzzing around where the feeder was supposed to be. I took the feeder back outside and shortly thereafter the hummer was feeding.

I shared this on Sunday morning with a woman at church whose spouse is an avid birder. He called me up in the afternoon and wondered if he might come and watch for the bird. He was at the house for about half an hour when it showed up. He identified it as a female Ruby-throated hummingbird; I thought I had been seeing some red on the neck but his picture and his better eye than mine didn't see any. In any case he said this was the latest confirmed report of a hummingbird in MN. (Update: On reflection I wonder if he said that if it had been a male it would have been the latest... I will have to find out.)

This morning we woke up to another fresh snowfall of several inches. I went out and cleaned off the feeder posts before light but then didn't watch the feeder until later in the morning. It didn't take long for the bird to show up and it has been in and out of the feeder every half hour or so.