Does anyone know anything about the migration times of Rufous hummingbirds around Centralia? In the past years my quince has been full of the little guys for several weeks almost as soon as the first blossoms appeared. This year I have only seen one or possibly two. On checking my daily log for birds at my feeders, I was surprised to see that the first hummer that I noticed was on March 24. It checked out my feeder and came back and fed from it until March 28, when he no longer appeared. After many attempts to lure someone back again, a red ribbon that was suggested seemed to work and a male Rufous came by, looked at the ribbon, saw the feeder, and did an abrupt about face. That was the last hummer seen here. It seems like an extraordinarily short time this year, and even more extraordinarily small amount of hummingbirds. Has anyone else seen or noticed anything pertinent to my experience?

J.V. Bonham
Centralia, WA
jvbonham at msn.com