As more hummingbirds winter in Savannah, birders try to track them

[Donna]

Cradling a ruby-throated hummingbird in her fist, Doreen Cubie poked its needle-like beak into a sugar water feeder on Skidaway Island Sunday.

"See, she's sticking her tongue out," she said. "They lap it up like a cat."

Moments before, Cubie had captured the bird by hanging its feeder inside a wire cage. When the hungry hummer flew in, she dropped the line that held the door open. Cubie weighed the bird, a hefty 3.8 grams or about as much as a packet of sugar, and quickly affixed a tiny aluminum band around its leg.

Her work is part of a larger effort to understand the habits of these birds, which seem to be getting more common as winter residents in Savannah and throughout the Southeast.

She records each bird's band number - its new identity - along with information such as sex, weight and exact location of capture. The National Bird Banding Laboratory in Maryland compiles the data and keeps track of recaptures, which tell the story of the birds' travels.

Or it would tell that story if ruby-throated hummingbirds were recaptured more frequently, which is why she's banding more of them. Cubie says the Savannah area's winter hummingbirds may be migrants from Canada, and the hummingbirds that summer here may migrate to the tropics for the winter. But so far, no ruby-throated hummingbirds have been recaptured to prove it.

Cubie is a freelance science writer based just north of Charleston. Assigned to write about hummingbird banding for Audubon Magazine in 2004, the already avid birder became fascinated with the process and apprenticed to get her federal license. She's now one of only about 200 hummingbird banders in the U.S.

Like many people, Cubie admires hummingbirds. She finds them acrobatic, curious, even fearless.

"They're one of the few birds that makes eye contact with you," she said.

Landings resident and skilled birder Russ Wigh helped arrange Cubie's Savannah banding trip, networking with other birders to map out the best places on Skidaway to capture hummingbirds.

That's how Carolyn Buttram ended up with "her" hummingbird in her hand ever so briefly Sunday. Cubie allowed her to release the bird after it was caught and banded on Buttram's front porch.

"I have a feeder outside my bedroom window," Buttram said. "It's her first drink of the day, I believe."

That makes sense to Cubie, who noted that hummingbirds feed heavily on insects and so use sugar water feeders mainly as an energy boost.

"It's like their Starbucks," she said.

[valhalla]

   Wonderful!

[Shaky]

I don't suppose they could put Kaver's old transmitter on them.

[Donna]

I don't suppose they could put Kaver's old transmitter on them.

UM.......I don't think so!!