Rufous & Ruby-throated Hummingbirds!

<This post was originally about just Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, but I heavily edited it with the more important news below>

"It" happened much sooner and with much less effort than I thought possible -- a Rufous Hummingbird visited my backyard!

The date was October 22nd a little after 5 o'clock in the evening.  Two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds had been visiting the hummingbird feeder in the backyard for weeks.  I happened to notice a lot of furious motion by the feeder and took a closer look.  A new hummingbird was present and was aggressively defending the feeder from the Ruby-throats.  Here's what I saw:

Rufous Hummingbird in my Wilmington, NC backyard, October 22 2012.  Note the rufous color (fancy word for "brown") extending down the sides of the tail, the key field mark for this species.

Rufous Hummingbird.  Wilmington, NC.  October 22 2012

Rufous Hummingbird on the right, Ruby-throated Hummingbird on the left.  Wilmington, NC.  October 22 2012.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird on the feeder, Rufous Hummingbird hovering to the left.  The Rufous Hummingbird is much more aggressive than the Ruby-throated birds and had a 100% success rate chasing them away from the feeder.

A good look at the brown undertail on my Rufous Hummingbird.

As the sun was setting, my wife Jaime took some excellent photos of the Rufous Hummingbird using a flash for illumination.

Probably the best photo taken of our Rufous Hummingbird.  Wilmington, NC.  October 22 2012.

Unfortunately the Rufous Hummingbird didn't hang around too long.  After just two days she departed our backyard for parts unknown.  It's always possible she'll be back, so I plan to keep a feeder stocked up with sugar water for her through the winter months ahead.  The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were all too happy to have the Rufous bird gone as some peace has returned to the backyard.

A Ruby-throated Hummingbird, hanging out in my Wilmington, NC backyard in late October.  The black patch on her neck is probably worn feathers from the rough rim of her nest earlier in the year.

So now that I've seen a Rufous Hummingbird, what's next on my list of rarities?   I'd love to see a Black-chinned Hummingbird:  they're rare in North Carolina but have been observed before.  In fact just last winter one spent a good portion of the winter on the south side of Wilmington as shown by the numerous eBird reports here:

eBird reports of a Black-chinned Hummingbird wintering in
Wilmington, NC during the winter of 2011-2012

Tonight's Crescent Moon

Tonight's Moon is one-quarter full which makes, in my opinion, some of the prettiest lunar photography.  The terminator (day/night line) on the moon's surface shows the most topographic detail since the sun angle is nearly horizontal.  This makes mountains and valleys show up with amazing clarity.

These pictures were not taken using a telescope -- just a consumer-grade Canon digital camera mounted on a tripod.  I used a variety of exposure times ranging from 15 seconds to 1/1600th of a second to accentuate different details.  The longer exposures show earthshine, light reflected off the daytime side of the earth illuminating the dark, nighttime side of the moon.  This is doubly-reflected sunlight that first reflected off the bright daytime side of the Earth, then the dark portion of the moon, then back to our eyes on the Earth again!  These long-exposure photos are also blurred due to the rotation of the earth producing apparently movement of the moon across the sky.

Mid-range exposures show a balanced view much like the human eye perceives.  Short exposure settings reveal details on the daytime side of the moon that would otherwise be drowned out by the bright surface there.

October Hummingbirds

The only hummingbird I've seen is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  If you live in the eastern half of the United States that may be the only one you've seen, too.  Here on October 1st I've still got two of these beautiful birds inhabiting my backyard.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird on my backyard feeder, October 1, 2012.

Obviously they're most attracted to my backyard hummingbird feeder.  They're also spending time visiting my Japanese Honeysuckle, Mexican Hummingbird bush, and some of the Cannas that are still blooming.  Notice red on the hummingbird feeder and on the flowers?  Hummingbirds are strongly attracted to the color red.  One of my bird identification guide books includes an anecdote stating Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have been killed when attempting to "feed" from red plastic insulators on electric fences.

Canna flowers, October 1, 2012.   They're much
prettier earlier in the year.

A few late flowers on my Mexican Hummingbird Bush,
October 1, 2012

Over the past 10 years or so there has been an increasing number of hummingbirds reported in the eastern United States during the fall or winter.  Primarily these reports are of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird and the Rufous Hummingbird, but more exotic species are showing up as well including the Calliope Hummingbird and the Black-chinned Hummingbird, among others.  Why is this happening?  Not being an expert myself I can only repeat what I've read elsewhere -- more and more people maintaining hummingbird feeders through the Fall and Winter months is probably the primary reason.  Climate change is also cited as a possible reason, but the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 were some of the coldest in the past 130+ years over the southeastern United States, yet both years had relatively large numbers of vagrant hummingbirds spending the winter here.

My feeling is the increasing number of feeders being maintained year-round, and the increasing number of people using the Cornell University eBird website to share their sightings are responsible for the apparent increase in the numbers of winter hummingbirds in the eastern United States.  Many hummingbirds undoubtedly have failed to locate their wintering grounds in Mexico and Central America for millennia, instead heading into the eastern U.S.  With few native plants flowering during the winter and few insects available to eat, these birds would have all starved -- until now.

The odds are certainly stacked against me, but my goal is to somehow attract one of these vagrant hummingbirds to my backyard this winter.  Or at least keep one of the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds I've already got.  We'll see...

Output graph from Cornell University's eBird database as of October 1, 2012 for nine counties across
Southeastern North Carolina.  The plot shows the frequency of all eBird checklists that include at least
one Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.  The high number of birds seen during the winter is partially due
to observational bias (when someone sees a hummingbird in winter they are MUCH  more likely to
file a report) but it also indicates that the birds are here in fairly substantial numbers during the winter.

To see an updated version of the graphic above using live data from eBird, click this link.