Hummer showed up today

[JW Mills]

A male hummingbird visited our feeder this evening.
First one of the season for the yard.

[JW Mills]

I saw the male again the following morning but I haven't seen it since.
This afternoon a female visited the feeder.

[JW Mills]

It looks like the female is nesting in our area again.
I've seen her at our feeder almost every day.

[Howieh]

It looks like the female is nesting in our area again.
I've seen her at our feeder almost every day.

Are you sure it's a female? A couple of closeup shots of a female(?) with my SX50 showed it to be a young male, i.e. a few of the gorget (neck) feathers have started to darken. I also have a male who shows up before sunrise and just before sunset with very few visits in between. I'm pretty sure it's the same bird because he comes directly to the feeder from the woods across the street. I really look forward to the post fledging period when lots more females and young birds show up, often several at the same time; the aerial battles can get pretty exciting!

[JW Mills]

Howie, you may be onto something. I'll check more closely the next time he/she shows up.
I do know that the male who showed up first has not been seen since.

[JW Mills]

The female showed up yesterday and today and it's definitely a female.
The male visited yesterday as well.

[Howieh]

Wonders never cease! I was lamenting the fact that my regular male had not showed up for over a week and guess what (no, what Howie?)? I was standing beside the feeder when a male suddenly flew in and perched right in front of me AND one of the other birds showed up right after so I got to witness my first courtship flight of the year! And this morning I have (at least) two females fighting over the feeder. Things are finally picking up!

[JW Mills]

We now have three Hummers, two female and one male!
Our first two showed up over a month ago. We noticed that while the male perched when feeding, the female never did. A few days ago the visits to the feeder by the female increased dramatically and we noticed that sometimes she perched and sometimes she didn't. We wondered if the female had changed her feeding habit after a month or was there a second female? This morning we had our answer. My gf saw two females come to the feeder at  the same time and of course, there was a bit of a kerfuffle over ownership of the feeder!
So now every time a female visits the feeder we look to see if she perches or not!

[Howieh]

Cool! and wait until the fledglings start showing up, especially when the male is around.

[mr.sharp-photo]

curious on opinions.
i only had one brief hummingbird visit and that was mid-May.
i was out of town for 6 weeks and my wife didn't look to see if we had visitors. she then joined me for a week and took the feeders down.

so...
should i bother putting the feeders back up?

[mc]

curious on opinions.
i only had one brief hummingbird visit and that was mid-May.
i was out of town for 6 weeks and my wife didn't look to see if we had visitors. she then joined me for a week and took the feeders down.

so...
should i bother putting the feeders back up?

absolutely.....we didn't notice hummingbirds visiting....but, in fact, they were visiting.....put the feeders back up!

[mr.sharp-photo]

curious on opinions.
i only had one brief hummingbird visit and that was mid-May.
i was out of town for 6 weeks and my wife didn't look to see if we had visitors. she then joined me for a week and took the feeders down.

so...
should i bother putting the feeders back up?

absolutely.....we didn't notice hummingbirds visiting....but, in fact, they were visiting.....put the feeders back up!

so if you didn't notice them visiting, how did you know they were visiting?

[mc]

curious on opinions.
i only had one brief hummingbird visit and that was mid-May.
i was out of town for 6 weeks and my wife didn't look to see if we had visitors. she then joined me for a week and took the feeders down.

so...
should i bother putting the feeders back up?

absolutely.....we didn't notice hummingbirds visiting....but, in fact, they were visiting.....put the feeders back up!

so if you didn't notice them visiting, how did you know they were visiting?

ah, mr sharp-photo, wise observation.....i went to the door to let my dog out, and lo and behold, a hummingbird....so, refilled the feeder (washed and cleaned, of course) and saw the hummingbird a couple of times after....(i have noted the date and times).  i noticed them earlier this year, last year, it was later -- august -- and they came by quite frequently.

[JW Mills]

curious on opinions.
i only had one brief hummingbird visit and that was mid-May.
i was out of town for 6 weeks and my wife didn't look to see if we had visitors. she then joined me for a week and took the feeders down.

so...
should i bother putting the feeders back up?

At our place the hummers are not continually at the feeder. Some visits are short, a few seconds and they're gone. If we're not at the window at the right time we won't see them. Yesterday the gf saw a female at 5:30 am, sunrise was at 5:47! Somedays we may not see them at all.
 
Put the feeder back up!
Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not coming.

[mr.sharp-photo]

curious on opinions.
i only had one brief hummingbird visit and that was mid-May.
i was out of town for 6 weeks and my wife didn't look to see if we had visitors. she then joined me for a week and took the feeders down.

so...
should i bother putting the feeders back up?

At our place the hummers are not continually at the feeder. Some visits are short, a few seconds and they're gone. If we're not at the window at the right time we won't see them. Yesterday the gf saw a female at 5:30 am, sunrise was at 5:47! Somedays we may not see them at all.
 
Put the feeder back up!
Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not coming.

they're back up. don't fret.