Hummingbirds In Garden

Sandpipers On Mud Flats Focus On Nature

August 31, 1986|by TOM FEGELY, The Morning Call

A woman called the other day to ask if it's too early to set up her bird feeding station.

My thoughts are that it's never too early although it may be hard to get much interest flowing among the neighborhood birds while summer's still at hand. Even people who set up their backyard food service operations in October will often be frustrated by a lack of interest from the region's birdlife, at least until cold weather or a bit of snow sets in.

"But I thought you once wrote that bird migrations start in August," she questioned.

While that's true, most of the species now starting their southward travels aren't of the mind - or dietary persuasions - to visit bird feeders.

This isn't to say that a wandering cardinal, a flock of house finches, or some other species won't find the seeds and start patronizing a summer feeder. But it's not until fall begins its ebb, natural food supplies dwindle and migrants take up temporary residences that things get into full swing.

Personally I don't set up any bird feeders until early October. In years past I've noted that a large percentage of seeds went to waste when placed on the feeding tray too early in the season.

But there is one type of bird that I try to lure with food in the warm months - the hummingbird.

Having traveled for most of the summer, it wasn't until a couple weeks back that my wife finally hung the hummingbird feeder - a new piece of pottery specially designed for these nectar-sipping birds that are quite abundant in the West. Although we haven't seen a backyard hummer dip its beak into the red-dyed sugar water as yet, one or two stop by daily to sample the natural nectar of the beebalm and other late blooms in the backyard flower garden.

I always see hummingbirds during the summer but probably find more of them in early September than at any other time of the year. This is theirprime migration period and on one memorable outing on Labor Day a couple years back my son and I counted 14 of them in southern Lehigh County in the span of a single afternoon.

The tiny bird, no bigger than a thumb, is a joy to observe. I've stood quietly next to a feeder and watched the birds perform their helicopter-like moves only a few feet away. At the first sign of movement, however, they're gone.

While passing through hummingbirds will continue to sip nectar from flowers and chances are good that you'll attract one or more to a feeder, if only for a brief period, as they head southward.

If you're fortunate enough to see a hummingbird keep in mind that it can only be the ruby-throat. While the West has a half-dozen common hummingbird species and another six live in Mexico, there's only one type that inhabits the East - the ruby-throated hummingbird.

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Birders who seldom let a week slip by without using binoculars and bird books will tell you that right now is prime time for visiting the wetland areas on the valley to look for sandpipers.

The common seashore sandpipers are, for me at least, difficult to identify unless they cooperate by allowing the time to check their identities in a field guide as they race the surf. Inland shorebirds are a bit more limited in numbers but two of them will be found hereabouts right now.

This week I saw a lone spotted sandpiper bobbing along a muddy edge of the Saucon Creek near Limeport, in lower Lehigh County. Its incessant teetor- totter movements made it easy to identify even though I didn't get a close look at its characteristic breast spots.

The spotted sandpiper nests in Pennsylvania and recently I saw them in the high country of Colorado, where chicks patrolled the shoreline of a pond along with several adults. Obviously this species is a successful one in beingable to adapt to such geographic extremes. It's sometimes found in the company of another sandpiper hereabouts - the solitary.

The solitary sandpiper isn't seen as often as the spotted but Birds of the Lehigh Valley Area (1984; Morris, Wiltraut and Brock; published by the Lehigh Valley Audubon Society) indicates that it is probably the second most abundant sandpiper in this region - particularly from now through September. Identify this small, ground-hunting bird by its barred outer tailfeathers, dark wings and longer (than the spotted sandpiper's) legs.

The Audubon booklet indicates that as many as 20 sandpiper species are possible within the L.V. area but only about a third of them might be expected in September. Add to the two species already mentioned the greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs, pectoral sandpiper, least sandpiper, semi-palmated sandpiper.

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