Hi All:

At the beginning of the season I lamented the fact that none of the male
rufous had shown up from last year. I had the regular contingent of
black-chinned and caliope. Right now I have all females and juvies. The
black-chinned seem to be doing especially well. I've had as many as 8
females at a time fighting over a feeder. Haven't seen an adult male
caliope for many weeks and haven't seen a black-chinned male for about 10
days. I live about 1/2 mile away from any neighbor but there are obviously
flowers or feeders somewhere in this wheat-covered country since there are
TWO male juvie rufous at the feeders (Rah! Rah!) whose gorgets are starting
to come in.

The hummers are having a hard time at the feeders because of the
yellow-jackets. I've put up yellow-jacket traps but there are too many of
them (insects not traps!). They just showed up about a week ago when the
willows in the front yard started weeping sap/nectar and now they're
fighting the hummers for the feeders. Before they showed up I was getting 6
hummers on each feeder and another 2 or 3 fighting to get a place. Now only
2 or 3 at the most are able to feed at the same time once the sun comes up.
The hummers are out there when the sky lightens but the sun hasn't started
hitting the yard; at that time they can feed undisturbed...if you don't
count them dive-bombing each other!

That's the hummer report for the area just west of Spokane.

Regards, Joanne
jhpowell at snapwa.org
Reardan (Spokane) WA