The cold snap that started Wednesday night and scrambled so many people’s Christmas travel plans also messed up the bar-crawl progress of local hummingbirds. They normally spend the day flitting from feeder to feeder (and, when they’re blooming, flower to flower).
On Thursday morning, when it was well below 32 degrees, I watched several visitors stop by my frozen-solid feeder and do their darndest. They hopped from perch to perch, trying again and again, but clearly getting no nectar at all. Then they hovered there looking flummoxed, hungry and cold.
Talk about a guilt trip! I wondered whether to intervene. Aren’t hummingbirds known to be about as tough as they are adorable?
While that’s true, experts suggest that birders with feeders take the extra step of keeping nectar flowing. If you’ve been maintaining a hummingbird feeder through the warmer months — and your local birds are used to it — don’t let a spate of freezing temperatures interrupt that.
“I recommend bringing (the feeder) inside at night to keep it from freezing,” said Cindy McCormack, an officer with Vancouver Audubon. While hummingbirds eat lots of insects, the feeder nectar we provide “helps provide some extra energy,” she said.
I thawed my feeder and put it back out there. My local hummingbird club got to work immediately. Some people go many extra miles by installing a feeder heater, insulation or even warming holiday lights, which do the job in Christmas colors.
Most hummingbird species migrate south for the winter. The species that stays here in western Washington all year round is called Anna’s hummingbird.
“Anna’s hummingbirds can survive quite cold weather,” McCormack said. “There are even a few that have been overwintering in eastern Washington over the last several years.”
But they don’t all survive, McCormack added.
“Some … may die during cold or poor weather conditions,” she said, “but (they) do remarkably well as long as they have food and shelter available.”
Other than tapping bird feeders, how do hummingbirds survive freezing temperatures? By entering a state of quasi-hibernation, otherwise known as torpor, which expends little energy and lowers body temperature. If you happen to notice birds hanging around your feeder that seem drunk or sick, they’re probably not. They’re probably just zoned out in the cold.
