Why don’t I see hummingbirds anymore?

If you are an avid bird watcher or someone who enjoys having hummingbirds visit their feeders and gardens, you may have noticed fewer of these tiny birds buzzing around lately. Hummingbirds are some of the most beloved backyard birds, but their populations have been declining in many areas in recent years. There are several reasons why you may not be seeing as many hummingbirds as you used to.

Habitat Loss

One of the biggest threats facing hummingbirds is habitat loss. Hummingbirds thrive in areas with native plants and flowers that provide nectar, as well as trees and shrubs that they can nest in. As forests are cleared and fields are paved over, there are fewer places for hummingbirds to nest and fewer flowers for them to feed on. Urban sprawl has taken over many natural areas where hummingbirds once flourished. The use of pesticides and herbicides in gardens and parks also kills off many of the plants that hummingbirds rely on.

Climate Change

Climate change is affecting hummingbirds in a couple key ways. First, the changing climate has caused some of their favored flowering plants and trees to bloom earlier in the spring before the birds arrive back from migration. This means they miss this key food source. Hotter summers and droughts are also drying up many of their natural nectar sources. Climate change is also shifting the ranges of some hummingbird species further north. This means populations may be declining in their traditional southern breeding grounds.

Fewer Insects

Hummingbirds get protein and nutrients by eating small insects like gnats, fruit flies, spiders, and aphids. However, insect populations around the world have been rapidly declining in recent decades. The heavy use of pesticides aimed at eliminating insects humans consider pests ends up inadvertently killing off many beneficial insects that hummingbirds feed on. With fewer insects around, it’s harder for hummingbirds to get the protein they need, especially during breeding season when they need extra energy.

Competition from Invasive Species

Non-native plants and flowers introduced in an area can crowd out the native species that hummingbirds have adapted to feed on over centuries. Species like Japanese honeysuckle, purple loosestrife, and multiflora rose often outcompete native flowers, reducing the nectar sources available to hummingbirds. In western North America, invasive European starlings compete with hummingbirds for nesting cavities, evicting hummingbirds from their nests and reducing breeding success.

Dangers During Migration

Hummingbirds migrate incredible distances each year, flying hundreds or even thousands of miles between their summer and winter habitats. This journey over mountains, across deserts, and through all kinds of weather takes an enormous toll. Scientists estimate that 40-50% of hummingbirds die during migration from exhaustion, starvation, weather events, collisions with buildings or cars, or predation. Loss of safe stopover habitat along migration routes makes completing these epic journeys even harder. Any additional challenges hummingbirds face while on their breeding or wintering grounds means fewer birds successfully completing migration each spring and fall.

How to Help Hummingbirds

While habitat loss, climate change, and other large-scale environmental factors can seem daunting, there are things you can do in your own backyard to support hummingbirds:

• Plant native flowers and shrubs that provide nectar such as bee balm, cardinal flower, columbine, trumpet creeper, and weigela.
• Avoid pesticides so there are more insects for hummingbirds to eat.
• Put up feeders with proper sugar/water mixture and change it frequently.
• Install a small fountain or mister so hummingbirds can bathe and drink.
• Leave brush piles as shelter for hummingbirds migrating through your yard.

Supporting local conservation groups who preserve natural habitat, educate communities, and study hummingbird populations is another great way to help protect these special birds. While one person alone cannot wholly reverse long-term environmental trends, collectively the choices we make in our yards and communities have a major impact on hummingbird populations. If we all planted more native flowers and provided migratory stopover habitat, the future could be brighter for hummingbirds.

Spring Arrivals May Be Later

One of the most noticeable changes you may see in hummingbird activity is their spring arrival date in your area. Here are some key points about spring hummingbird migration:

• Most hummingbird species migrate north to their breeding grounds based on food availability and other environmental cues that signal spring.
• With climate change causing altered bloom times, hummingbirds may arrive at their usual breeding grounds to find few flowers available yet.
• This can delay the start of nesting, fewer chicks surviving, and poorer physical condition going into migration.
• Arrival dates in recent decades show that hummingbirds are arriving an average of two weeks later in many northern states and Canada.
• One study found ruby-throated hummingbird arrival at their breeding sites delayed by an average of 13.7 days compared to historically.

If hummingbirds seem late in your area based on past years, it could be an indicator of shifting migration and bloom times. Providing early food sources like feeders and appropriate flowering plants can help returning hummingbirds. But the altered environmental timing stresses hummingbird populations by disrupting their precisely adapted internal clocks and breeding cycles.

Urban Development Causes Habitat Loss

Urbanization has accelerated rapidly with the human population expanding and more land being converted for housing, stores, roads, parking lots, and other elements of cities and suburbs. Here is how this development destroys hummingbird habitat:

• Trees, shrubs, meadows, and other natural areas cleared for buildings and roads.
• Native plant species that hummingbirds rely on removed in favor of lawn grass and non-native ornamental plants.
• Use of herbicides, pesticides, and other chemicals harmful to natural food sources.
• Housing areas lack continuous habitat and fragment hummingbird populations.
• Glass windows and buildings present collision and mortality threats.
• Predators like cats are abundant in suburban areas and decimate hummingbirds.

For hummingbird populations already stressed by climate change and other factors, losing more breeding and migratory habitat to development compounds the problem. Protecting urban green spaces and gardens with native plants can help counteract habitat loss. But the extent of development presents huge challenges to hummingbird conservation in many areas.

How Hummingbirds Navigate Amazing Migrations

Hummingbirds make epic migratory journeys each spring and fall. Here’s how they navigate these remarkable trips:

• Internal circadian clocks and biological cues help guide migration along favorable routes.
• Fat stores and physiological adaptations allow flying nonstop over barriers like the Gulf of Mexico.
• Ability to enter torpor overnight helps conserve energy on migration.
• Excellent memory helps return to successful feeding locations year after year.
• Keen eyesight and spatial perception to orient and identify habitat.
• Sensitive olfactory ability may help locate food sources.
• Preference for following coasts and mountain ranges when possible.
• Ability to adjust based on wind and weather throughout journey.

Baby hummingbirds only a few months old complete these migrations entirely on their own without guidance. Their incredible navigational ability serves them well most of the time. But any new obstacles and threats encountered along migration routes can throw birds off course or force them to tap into energy reserves needed to complete the journey. Supporting healthy stopover habitat helps ensure migrating hummingbirds have a place to rest and refuel amid their grueling travels.

Key Times When Hummingbirds Need Food

Here are the key times during the year when hummingbirds most rely on flower nectar and feeders to get the energy they need:

• Spring Migration: Arriving hummingbirds need food after flying hundreds of miles to their breeding grounds.
• Nesting: Female hummingbirds need extra energy to build nests, lay eggs, incubate and feed chicks.
• Molting: Growing new feathers twice a year requires extra calories and nutrients.
• Preparing to Migrate: Hummingbirds need to nearly double their weight in fat reserves before migrating.
• Cold Snaps: Below-normal temperatures force hummingbirds to use more energy staying warm.

Providing a continuous supplemental food source from early spring through late fall can help hummingbirds when their needs peak. Planting early and late-blooming flowers extends this nectar availability. Feeders should be kept clean and filled regularly, especially during fledging season and just before migration when hummingbird feeding needs are highest.

Threats Hummingbirds Face During Migration

During their spring and fall migrations, hummingbirds must overcome immense challenges:

• Exhaustion – flying hundreds of miles nonstop over open water, mountains, or desert.
• Starvation – burning fat faster than replenishing at stopover sites.
• Inclement weather – facing high winds, rain, fog, or temperature extremes.
• Lack of habitat – not enough healthy stopover sites with food.
• Predators – peregrine falcons, hawks, cats, and other predators prey on them.
• Human structures – colliding into towers, buildings, cars, or wind turbines.

These obstacles along their migration routes add significant stress and mortality during travels already taxing their endurance. Minimizing these threats by preserving habitat, reducing collisions, and making stopover areas bird-friendly is crucial to successful migrations.

This table shows estimated one-way migration distances for some common hummingbird species in North America. Their tiny size hides the fact that many undertake migrations equal to or greater than those made by many songbirds. Supporting healthy habitats across this scope helps hummingbirds complete their epic seasonal journeys.

Provide Protein Along with Nectar

Hummingbirds get energy from nectar, but providing protein sources also helps them thrive:

• Eat small insects like gnats, aphids, fruit flies to get protein.
• Insects are especially vital food for growing chicks.
• A few feeders offer “insect nectar” with protein added.
• Fountains and misters attract insects that hummingbirds eat.
• Avoiding pesticides allows insect numbers to rebound.
• Plant flowers that attract pollinating insects hummingbirds prey on.

While nectar feeders are easier and attract more hummingbirds, also think about ways to provide live insects. Even a small water feature or certain flowers can draw in bugs. Boosting your garden’s insect diversity benefits the hummingbirds’ diet and teaches young birds to forage.

Threat of Window Collisions

Windows claim the lives of hundreds of millions of birds annually in the United States. Hummingbirds are especially vulnerable:

• See windows reflecting trees, sky and confuse them for habitat.
• Small size makes hummingbirds less able to absorb collision impact.
• Often die from stress afterwards even if initial impact is survived.
• Occurs most during migration times.
• Greatest number of collisions happen in the morning and evening hours.

To reduce window collisions, hang visible external screens, apply window decals, or use UV-reflecting glass. Close curtains and blinds where possible to avoid reflections. Keeping feeders and vegetation away from windows also decreases collision risk.

Causes of Hummingbird Population Decline

Multiple interconnected factors contribute to dwindling hummingbird numbers:

• Habitat loss – Development, logging, agriculture destroys nesting and foraging habitat.
• Pesticides – Kills insects hummingbirds rely on for food, nectar sources.
• Climate change – Altering flower bloom cycles, expands competitor ranges, raises mortality during migration.
• Invasive species – Non-native plants and predators outcompete native species hummingbirds depend on.
• Disease – Protozoa and other diseases linked to feeders, habitat stressors, climate shifts.
• Predators – Free-roaming domestic cats kill billions of birds annually including hummingbirds.

Solving such an interconnected problem requires a concerted effort to alter detrimental practices on individual, industrial, and systemic levels to support environmental health. Progress will depend on shifting human activity to balance biodiversity interests with development. How we shape our buildings, farms, gardens, and public green spaces all impact if hummingbirds will continue to thrive.

Conclusion

Seeing fewer hummingbirds where they once buzzed happily from flower to flower is always alarming for avid birdwatchers. But by understanding the key threats these tiny birds face throughout their life cycles, and taking targeted conservation action to counter them, we can work to preserve hummingbird populations. While large-scale issues like habitat loss and climate change are challenging to solve, supporting native plants, providing migration stopover spots, limiting pesticide use, keeping cats indoors, and reducing building collisions make a difference. Small steps in our homes, gardens, and neighborhoods can add up to more vibrant hummingbird activity, bringing their magic to future generations.