It's getting to be that time of year again. The birds up north are fattening up, fighting over available food stores, getting ready to head south for the winter.
All along the Gulf Coast birders are preparing for the grand migration. Everywhere along the Gulf Coast birding events are scheduled. The event described here centers on the ruby-throated hummingbird. Stay tuned, we'll chronicle these events as they are announced. It's sure to be a great year for birding along the Gulf Coast.
River of hummingbirds
Tiny birds pass through La. on way to winter groundsLAFAYETTE -- A little sugar water is all one needs to catch a glimpse of some of the millions of hummingbirds passing through Louisiana to winter homes south of the border.
“What we have now is a river of hummingbirds flowing through Louisiana,†said Dave Patton, a Lafayette hummingbird enthusiast who has a federal license to band the birds with tiny aluminum bracelets to help track migration patterns.
September is the most active month in south Louisiana for the ruby-throated hummingbird, the main species seen in the state.
The birds flew north across the Gulf of Mexico in the spring to breed in the eastern half of the United States, from Louisiana to as far as southern Canada.
The tiny hummingbirds — or “hummers†as birders call them — are flittering around flowers and feeders to fatten up for the return trip to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
“They’ll double their body weight. You can see them do it,†said Bill Fontenot, an avid birder and curator at the Acadiana Park Nature Station.
Fontenot said the birds will go from about 3.2 grams to 5 grams, about the weight of a nickel.
Unlike the spring migration across the Gulf, many ruby-throats are thought to migrate in the fall along the coast, from Louisiana through Texas and then south instead of taking the perilous day-long trip across open water, Fontenot said.
“The entire eastern population, we believe, flies south to the Gulf Coast and hangs a right. … Most of us believe they all funnel through Louisiana and east Texas,†Fontenot said.
The fall migration pattern is a boon for Louisiana birders, because the state not only hosts the ruby-throats that nested here, but also their offspring hatched over the summer and birds from the north passing through on their way south.
“That’s why it’s such a phenomenon in southwest Louisiana,†Fontenot said. “It’s not at all unusual to find 50 birds in one yard.â€
Patton said many of the birds might be in a particular yard only for a day before continuing along the migration journey.