Hummingbird Update

In my last post I said the hummingbirds were gone. I was wrong. We either have a new one or our summer bird changed her habits. During the summer one female sat on the feeder stand "branches" and guarded her stash. Now, we have a lone female who's out early in the morning, while it's still a bit nippy.

I'm wondering if she's just a bit too old to make the long trip and has decided to end her days with us.

I don't know enough about hummingbirds to know if possibly she has some babies she's watching over. I read somewhere that hummingbirds will forgo the long trip south if they're ill, too old, or they have young ones to guard over who won't be able to make the trip.

I'm not sure what our hummingbird is doing during the day. Could be that the weather is just nippy enough that she's filling up early in the morning then snuggling the rest of the day, maybe she slips out later in the day and I'm just missing her.

I understand they can hunker down, slow metabolism almost to hibernation ratio when it gets cold.

Maybe someone will read this who knows more than I and will give me some ideas.

Of course, it just could be that she's not ready to leave yet and one day soon she'll really be gone. I would think if she's planning on leaving that she'd be at the feeders all day, storing up fuel for the trip.