I've seen a few over the past few days, drinking from my new salvias. This is the earliest I've ever seen them (although according to the map, they've been here for a month already!)

Hi, mehitabe, Thanks for responding so quickly, I have mixed emotions about the hummingbirds leaving, kinda glad I will have the winter birds still around. I have been reading to see if there are some stray birds that make the upstate home for the winter, other than the ones that live here year round. One of the first birds I ran into in late April, before I got my first hummingbird feeder, was a house finch. I had never seen this little red headed sparrow (as I called it, that was the way I also found it at Youtube with the real name). As I read about it, in an article written a few weeks earlier, it was new to our area, (the reason I hadn't seen it before), but I believe they are here to stay, the male and female had two broods this summer adding seven young one's that will be breading next spring? I guess? What I'm getting at, is that there might be a day that we have a year round hummer here, because the house finch migrated east from Hawaii to California to here, and there is a small number of hummers in California, and Colorado, that no longer go back to the mid-Americas, because they have become accustomed to temps in the low 20's F, who knows, maybe I'll invent a heated hummingbird feeder. Nothing wrong with dreaming. Thanks much, keep birding, Robert "Windwalker" ps. While I was here typing I have a new hummer, when the male chases this hummer away the back is yellow the new hummer has tried to get water but the male gives, this is a new male too, so I guess the male in charge has left, to work his way to his winter grounds? He did have two females that he gave chase. so three backs, two green and one is a metallic yellow no matter which way he turns, I got them confused in the chase. It's the new male that has a yellow back, all the hummers so far when they fly through the sunlight have metallic green, but the male. going to stop and see what I have. it has gotten so busy, even have a new bird in the last few minutes, I think it a wren, maybe Carolina wren, not seen this bird except in books, and nature shows. "He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler." Psalm 91:4

I don't know that we have as many ants as past years, and I like 'em in general because they are great scavengers--you know, they carry away a lot of carcasses of dead insects. The ones we do have, though, really go after the hummingbird nectar if they get a chance. I think hummingbird feeders are like fast food for bees--they COULD go and get nectar from plants in the normal way, but why bother if that fast food restaurant is right there and convenient. LOL We do not have a shortage of bees here--always got lots and lots. A farmer friend of ours who lives maybe a little over a mile from us says he never has bees any more, and I don't know what to tell him. (Well, he sprays pesticides and he KNOWS they kill the bees, and he tries to spray when bees are not active, but I think his pesticide use probably is the problem.) At our house we have bees 12 months out of the year. In the winter months where their food supply varies from being extremely limited to non-existent, they come to the bird feeders, the hen scratch and the deer corn. I would say that, in light of the bee Colony Collapse Disease issues facing many, it is WONDERFUL that you have a lot of bees. Maybe all of us in rural areas can at least nurture and keep the bees we have even though the professional beekeepers are stuggling with CCD. Dawn

Nice shot. I can never get them to sit still long enough to get a good shot of one. Most of my hummingbirds have already migrated south. Maybe the one in your photo will stop by my house on its way south. I live in Maryland richard