Hello all...
Back at my last National Park Service posting in West Virginia we often had
a few late Ruby-throated hummers into October, and even an occasional
Rufous. The accepted opinion then for those of us with feeders was to keep
them up in order to accommodate the late-comers on their way south. I don?t
think we ever had one after mid-October but there were a few reports from
nearby of some hummers sticking around nearly all winter (the National
Arboretum in DC had one that stayed through the winter, assisted by a feeder
under a 100-watt light in 2004).
At our new place just south of Port Townsend we still have a single female
Anna?s visiting our feeder despite several periods of cold rain and a pretty
strong windstorm a few nights ago, and are concerned about this gal?s
future. We plan to keep the feeder going, probably bringing it in at night
and replacing it in the mornings after the first frost but are interested to
know if this is still considered the right thing to do. Does anyone know of
any recent research on this?

Gary Cummins
Port Townsend
casacummins at yahoo.com