Fewer hummingbirds are at our feeders. August was such a frenzy I found myself just barely able to watch from my easy chair. It’s feeling you get from watching a nailbiter of a ballgame from the bleachers.
Terry Johnson, a fine naturalist who lives in Central Georgia, said the Ruby-throated hummingbirds go in waves — the males leaving as early as July, the females going next, and this year’s birds going last.
Most of us know that the birds mobbed the feeders to store up fuel for the migration southwest, crossing the Gulf of Mexico.
Johnson had the numbers: During the feeding frenzy, the weight of the average female increases from 3.5 grams to 5.5. Each gram of fat can be converted into about 300 miles.
I have been trying to imagine it — what a 57 percent change in weight would be like. The gain in a few weeks. The loss in a few days.
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