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Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have long-migrated from my local southeastern locale, but this weekend I got to watch as a lst-year Rufous Hummingbird was captured and banded at a house a few blocks from me. In recent years the appearances of these Rufous Hummers (and occasionally other "western" hummer species) have become routine, though still rare. As word gets out for people in the southeast to leave their hummingbird feeders up in wintertime and watch for the possibility, each year more of these oddities get reported. Still, one can't help but wonder how many of them are missed totally each and every cold season --- dozens... 100's... 1000's across the region???
It is difficult to know if more and more of these li'l jewels are making the winter sojourn eastward than ever before, or, as may well be the case, they have in large part always been here (in winter), but only in recent times been noticed. Watching this feisty little tyke get fitted for a leg band I couldn't help but think how just a few decades ago someone reporting a hummingbird in their backyard in winter here would've been met with all-knowing skepticism, but now we know better, and it is a cause of much interest and serious study. Just another example in the bird-world of how little, really, we know, or comprehend with certainty.... and how that knowledge constantly changes over time.
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