When they leave

Keep your feeder up for at least two weeks after you see your last hummingbird, so a late straggler can refuel on its way south. Leaving it up won't keep any bird from migrating. Then give the feeder a full cleaning, let it dry completely, and store it until early spring. In Colorado, that means putting it back out around the end of March or early April.

Will leaving my feeder up stop them from migrating?

No. This is one of the most common hummingbird myths. Shortening days are what tell hummingbirds it's time to go, not how much food is around. Cornell Lab puts it plainly: keeping your feeders up has no influence on whether a bird starts its journey south.

A feeder that's still up in fall actually helps. Migrants need to refuel along the way, and a late bird passing through may depend on the few feeders still out.

When to take your feeder down

  • The general rule: wait until you haven't seen a hummingbird for about two weeks. Cornell Lab suggests keeping feeders up "several weeks after the last hummingbird leaves the area, just in case a straggler shows up."

  • In Colorado: BirdWatching magazine suggests taking feeders down in November if you haven't seen a hummingbird in two weeks. There's no harm in leaving one up that long, as long as you keep the nectar fresh.

  • Keep cleaning until the end: a fall feeder needs the same fresh nectar as a summer one. Cooler weather just means you can change it less often (see Feeders and Nectar).

  • Bear country: Colorado Parks and Wildlife asks people in bear country not to hang bird feeders until November 15. If bears come through your area, take the feeder down when the birds are gone rather than leaving it up for stragglers. More in the bear note on the Feeders and Nectar page.

  • A hummingbird in winter: once in a while, a hummingbird shows up or stays far later than expected. If you see one in late fall, keep your feeder clean and filled for it, and consider reporting it on eBird, since late birds are useful records.

Cleaning and storing feeders for winter

Before a feeder goes into storage, give it the most thorough cleaning of the year.

  • Take it all apart: every port, flower, perch and gasket. Dried sugar and mold hide in the small pieces.

  • Soak and scrub: soak the empty parts for about an hour in a weak vinegar solution, the same monthly soak Cornell Lab recommends during the season, then scrub with a bottle brush and rinse well.

  • Dry completely: leave every piece out until it's fully dry. Anything packed away damp can grow mold over the winter.

  • Store it clean and covered: keep the parts together in a bag or bin somewhere indoors, so they stay free of dust, insects and spiders until spring.

  • Check for wear: look for cracks, cloudy plastic and loose seals now, so you know whether you need a replacement before the birds come back.

I follow these same steps. My feeders spend the winter in a storage closet with all my gardening supplies, and I clean them again before they go back out in spring.

Where they spend the winter

Colorado's hummingbirds spend the winter far to the south, mostly in Mexico.

  • Broad-tailed: pine-oak forests, dry thorn forests and tropical highlands throughout Mexico.

  • Black-chinned: Mexico, and many winter along the Gulf Coast.

  • Rufous: Mexico, often in oak, pine and juniper woods at 7,500 to 10,000 feet.

  • Calliope: thorn forests, pine-oak forests and brushy edges in Mexico. For the smallest bird in the United States, that's a round trip of more than 5,000 miles a year.

How the birds fare down there matters up here. Cornell Lab notes that in the late 1950s, fewer Broad-tailed came back to breed in Colorado after what seemed to be a severe winter in Mexico.

Getting ready for next spring

  • Put feeders back early: have them up about a week before you expect the first birds. Along Colorado's Front Range that's around the end of March or early April; in the mountains it can be May. The Migration Timing page has the full calendar.

  • Plan some flowers: winter is a good time to plan a few native nectar plants for next year. Red columbine, Indian paintbrush, penstemon, scarlet gilia, larkspur, currants and sages are all good Colorado choices. Native flowers feed hummingbirds even when your feeder is empty.

  • Start fresh: check your stored feeders for damage, and make a fresh batch of nectar (1 part white sugar to 4 parts water) for the first fill.

My off-season

My last visitor was on September 30, so my feeders come down on October 10, roughly two weeks after the last bird I saw.

Next spring, I'll make sure someone can look after the feeders while I'm away on vacation. Watching my feeder camera, I saw that because I was gone for an extended time, nobody could clean the feeder, and the birds stopped visiting for a short while.

This winter I'm putting up a regular seed feeder to film some of Colorado's winter birds for lighter content over the off-season. It's a hummingbird site, but these Colorado "snow birds" make their homes here in winter while the hummingbirds are away.

Sources

From the Journal

Journal
Update 1 - Learning

This is the first update since starting and creating this website. A lot has happened since, and I would like to take the time today to do so with this first blog post.

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