September 11, 2022: Hummingbirds

Starting in late summer Linda lets her coleus plants go to seed.  In addition to having thousands of pretty little flowers they are great for attracting pollinators and, yes, hummingbirds.  It amazes me that they can get a meaningful amount of nectar from those miniature blooms, but they must because they spend a lot time there every day.

A female ruby-throated hummingbird works its way around the coleus blossoms.

It will go systematically around each flower spike, spiraling up or down taking just an instant to probe its beak into every flower.

Hummingbirds use their tail feathers actively in maintaining their position.

After watching them closely it dawned on me how precise their flying ability is.  They are airborne, hovering with two flapping wings, yet they accurately stab that beak right into the target - I've never seen them miss and have to try again.  The precision control of their spatial orientation is incredible.

Their ability to hover is unique among birds and is made possible by its shoulder having a ball and joint construction which allows hummingbirds to rotate their wings 180 degrees.  They don't flap their wings, but rather rotate them.  When hovering stationary their wings move in a figure eight pattern so they provide lift throughout the wing pattern.

High speed wings and the ability to hover enables that long beak to hit the bullseye.

There seems to be one dominate bird that thinks it owns all the plants and it chases away anyone trying to steal its nectar.  One day I even watched it chase a bumblebee which dared to land on its flowers.  The bee wasn't readily scared off and the hummingbird kept stabbing at it until it finally buzzed off.  Later, it or another bee returned when the hummingbird wasn't watching over its claim.

The bee will feed while the bird's away.

The bumblebee wasn't nearly as methodical as the hummingbird, taking a somewhat random path through the flowers as seen in this video of a bumblebee on Linda's begonias:

According to my field guides the ruby-throated humming bird is the only hummingbird found in the eastern United States.  It will soon be departing on its fall migration where it follows a path along the Appalachian Mountains on its way to its winter grounds in Central America.  Hummingbirds fly about 25 miles an hour, though they can double that when diving.  On their migration they only cover about 25 miles per day, so they must spend a fair amount of time resting and feeding.

Fall is prime feeding time for many animals preparing for winter, whether they are stocking up for a cold winter in New Hampshire or storing energy for a long trip south.  The later is the case for monarch butterflies that hatch this late in the summer, the last of four or five generations of monarchs that hatch each summer.  Earlier in the season monarch butterflies live for several weeks and lay eggs on a milkweed plant - because that is the only plant monarch caterpillars eat.

Monarch on a milkweed plant at Page Pond Town Forest.

I didn't think to look for eggs on the underside of the milkweed leaves, but I'll bet they were there.

Perhaps this monarch is laying eggs right now.  Do spiders eat butterfly eggs?

After hatching, the caterpillars will eat milkweed leaves for several weeks, molting multiple times as they grow before they finally form their chrysalis.  To ensure their chrysalis will survive they will crawl to another plant such as a small tree or shrub that is robust enough to support their transformation into an adult butterfly.  I found this chrysalis on a woody plant just a few feet from milkweed plants.

A clear, translucent chrysalis means the butterfly is almost ready to emerge.

But this late in the season this last generation of monarch butterflies won't lay eggs once they complete their metamorphosis.  In fact, to help them make the marathon trip south to Mexico they won't even develop reproductive organs yet.  Only once they're in warm weather and the days are longer will their reproductive systems develop.

The Meredith Conservation Commission is leaving a different portion of the fields at the Page Pond Town Forest un-mowed each year to provide food and habitat for a large range of animals that depend on this underrepresented habit in New Hampshire.  Monarch butterflies are one example; the Northern Bobolink seen here earlier in the season is another, and American Woodcock is yet another.   Most fields in New Hampshire are mowed several times a year which precludes these field animals from breeding.

Mowed and un-mowed sections of the Page fields.

September is the perfect time to take a walk in a field, the woods, or the mountains.  Days are cooler, the air is clear and dry, and animals are becoming more active again.  Any walk in nature this time of year is bound to reward one with beautiful moments.

Page Brook seen from the bog bridge on the Yellow Trail at Page Pond Town Forest.