Hummingbirds are exclusive to the Americas, North, Central and South. (There are birds with similar habits in Africa, but they are bigger and not related.) There are many species – the smallest weighs the same as six aspirins. I first saw them at 16,000 feet, above the treeline, in Peru, then feeding on wild, purple-flowered fuchsia bushes that cascaded by a mountain stream, bowed down by snow, in Chile.
Two species come to Ginty Creek, the commonest is the Rufous.
I include this page from Sibleys Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, because my photos cannot show the colouring of these amazing birds. Sibleys can’t do the colours justice either, because they are irridescent – that is, they often look black until the sun catches them. The best photo I have to show the irridescence is unfortunately on a specimen that was close to death – it died a few moments later.
Here is a male on a branch flexing his wings.
These birds are extraordinary in many ways. Their wings do not behave like those of other birds because of a specialized shoulder joint. When in flight, the wings are a blur to human eyes, but slow photography show them to move in a figure of eight, which enables the birds to hover and fly backwards – the only bird able to do this.
Their hearts beat 1000 times a minute. They must eat every 20 minutes to survive although they can go into a sort of torpor to survive the cold nights. They are at the feeder at very first light – often their sugar-water is frozen.
Despite their apparent tenuous hold on life, eastern species can migrate from Costa Rica to New York in FOUR DAYS!
As well as the loud hum made when they are flying, males can adjust their feathers to make a ringing buzz. Each species has a special flight pattern when courting females. The Rufous zooms down in a ringing kamikaze flight and whizzes back and forth over a female who is standing quietly on the ground near a bush. The hormones are so strong, they will display to sparrows and even pine cones.
The most entertaining thing about them as far as I am concerned is the way they fight! Eight or nine are visiting my feeder right now – sometimes all at once. (Locals tell me that once the young hatch there may be 30 birds vying for a drink but I am always in the mountains at Nuk Tessli at that time.)
They are like bees around a honey pot but with much louder buzzes. When I go and replace the feeder (which they empty within a day) they will whizz within inches of my face.
The McClinchy river is quite low now. The flow is restricted in the high country where everything is frozen so not much water gets to lower elevations.
Because of the chimney configuration it tends to smoke when the door is open, but otherwise it burns fine. I use the cookstove in the morning for a faster fire, but that does not hold the heat. So about an hour before sundown, I light the stone stove – by the time the sun has gone, the rocks are radiating heat nicely. I cook supper on it, then give it a last feed before bed, and the cabin is toasty all night and still warm in the morning.
As it finally warmed up, it snowed in earnest, and we had about 6″.
Three grey jays, also known as camp robbers and whiskeyjacks, usurped the feeder.
The sun came out, and the snow became magical before it all got melted and blown off the trees.
It is supposed to snow a bit more before the weekend, but I hope not too much, for I wish to have a booth at the Tatla Lake Christmas craft fair. It is also supposed to thaw so I expect I will be able to drive out without having to have the road ploughed.
The flowers are all trying to bloom. Here is a Butterwort, sometimes known as a Bog Violet although it is not related to violets at all.
Butterworts are insect-eaters. The bogs around Nuk Tessli are extremely acid. Acidity ties up the nitrogen in the soil and the plants need to find nourishment elsewhere. Small insects land on the sticky leaves and are unable to get away. Enzymes in the glandular hairs that form a slimy surface to the leaves then digest them.
The current clients at Nuk Tessli are birders. The birds have rarely sung this year, but they seem to be making babies all the same. Here is a parent clark’s nutcracker with a full-grown young begging for food.
And here is the spotted sandpiper.
A bedraggled yellow-rumped warbler was collecting food for his offspring.
He is looking as fed up as we are with the rain.
The new summer weather was not forecast to last, so the next day we loaded the canoe onto the van and went to visit Nimpo Lake.
This is a view from the upper end of Nimpo Lake with the Itchas in the background. The Itchas is one of the volcanic ranges north of Highway 20. By this time of year usually 50% of the snow has gone from these south-facing slopes.
The pussy willows have turned yellow.
There is a constant movement of birds. Today two striking male yellow-headed blackbirds came to the feeder briefly.
Can’t say as I blame him!
Mogens is from Germany and he plans to spend the summer wwoofing in Canada. Wwoof stands for: Willing Workers On Organic Farms. Well, I don’t have an organic farm but the organizers don’t mind. I have had a lot of wwoofers from Germany, many also from Switzerland, some from Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, US, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. A few don’t work out but 90% of them are absolutely great. Mogens seems to be enjoying the work I am giving him.
I helped Mogens build the first part, but he finished the job himself, including the bridge part.
He is a male Purple Finch. His drab, stripey lady friends have been around for a while.
He is not quite sure if he can dare to grab a bite of food because someone else is feeding.
And there was a buzz at my kitchen window. The first Rufous Hummingbird of the year.
And I was charmed by a tiny scrap of life known as a ruby-crowned kinglet. They have a noisy song, but nothing is singing in this weather. I could not get a photo, but here is a drawing I did as an illustration for 