Rufie the Returning Hummingbird

The call came from the headquarters of the Massachusetts Audubon Society in Lincoln. Someone in the Connecticut Valley had called them to report an unusual sighting of a bird. This happens once in a while. More often one of the nearby sanctuaries is called, Laughing Brook or Arcadia, and they call me. A homeowner had a hummingbird coming to her feeder. It looked different than the usual hummers, the last of which had disappeared from her yard three weeks earlier, in late September. I called her and arranged to come see the bird.

A small, shy woman answered the bell. "Are you from the Audubon Society?" she asked with a soft, hesitant voice. She welcomed me in, and my eyes looked immediately out the back windows and onto a backyard scene full of plants and bird feeders. She showed me a picture in her guide and how the spread tail matched what she was able to see on her bird. She was obviously a careful and patient observer - a good sign. Suddenly the bird appeared and sat on a perch, all too briefly, but enough to confirm that this was not a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

If you thought this is the beginning of the story of "Rufie," the hummingbird that first appeared at an Agawam feeder in October of 1996, you are misled. This bird was named "Angel," and it was cared for by a woman in Holyoke until Christmas day, 1992. On that very cold morning, it did not come to feed on the warm nectar that was put in place every day before dawn. No one knows what happened, but it likely perished rather than moved on to some warmer clime.

Last week I told about individuals of some species that move east from their western breeding range rather than south to the tropics, and end up on the east coast, lost and often doomed. The Rufous Hummingbird is one of those species. It nests from coastal Alaska to inland Idaho, then heads south to Mexico for the cold months. I have seen them at feeders in Arizona, where they arrive in late July. There they terrorize each other and the dozen other hummingbird species present, caught up in the frenzy of trying to protect a precious food supply.

The fate of Rufie is almost unique, but there are many individual birds of a variety of species who provide excitement to northeast birders every fall and winter. Rufie was not even the first to spend the winter in an eastern greenhouse. A woman in New York state hosted a hummingbird several years ago and wrote a book about it.

Angel was the first Rufous Hummingbird to be found in our region, but since then, in 1995, two different individuals visited feeders in Northampton and Orange from mid-September to mid-October. This is just in our area. Now that nectar feeders are so popular, there are birds being found throughout the northeast. Only a few days ago a male Rufous Hummingbird arrived at a feeder in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

Rufie has spent the last two winters in a Northampton greenhouse, after being rescued from her yard of choice in Agawam. Last winter she was banded, so there would be no doubt about her identity if she returned again. Some did doubt, believe it or not. Rufie arrived in Agawam very early this year, in fact in mid-August. Now she has the 2000-mile route down pat and wastes no time.

Well, perhaps a different individual isn't too far-fetched, for guess what? Three weeks ago another Rufous Hummingbird showed up in the same yard in Holyoke where Angel resided in 1992. It was not Angel, and the bird only stayed for five days, but there it was! If you have a yard attractive with fall flowers and a freshly filled nectar feeder, a wandering hummingbird could grace your neighborhood even in October or November.

Rufie's Northampton host will soon capture his greenhouse guest and keep her nourished and content through the winter. One wonders how a second bird might fare in that small home. In fact it is possible that Rufie might be raising young who inherit her directional instincts, and she may someday have to share her home with one of her offspring. We human parents think we have it tough when our grown children move back home.