The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

A newly arrived female Broad-billed Hummingbird demonstrates she’s in a family way.

March 5, 2022

The days lengthen and the heartbeat of my yard cues me to a change.  My calendar of birds turns a page.  An uptick in hummingbirds.  The single Anna’s of winter has become six, males pairing to females, the latter of which take a sudden interest in the shaggy lint clothespinned to the line.

Five days ago, the first rufous hummingbird—a female on her way from central Mexico to nesting grounds in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, or southern Alaska—arrived at the feeders to harass the Anna’s.  So feisty for her puny size.  Two days later, a broad-tailed hummingbird (a male) joined them.  Then, a female broad-billed, her curved magenta bill tipped with cotton fibers.

The male Anna’s Hummingbird’s dive-bomb courtship display finishes with a squeaky explosion.

Anna’s Hummingbirds are early nesters in the yard. Here, a female gathers lint in February.

Rufous Hummingbirds (female here, male below) pause to refuel during their journey north.

Male Broad-tailed hummingbirds often arrive in the yard from central Mexico even before Rufous Hummingbirds.

Taking a vector from their flight paths, I search the trees for hummingbird nests. Mostly unsuccessfully.  This is not a needle in a haystack.  More like a cotton ball in a snowstorm.  Hummingbirds build tiny nests of willow leaves and grasses and feathers, bound together with spiderwebs or unspooled cocoons, and camouflaged among the oak leaves with lichens and mosses. 

Like a hacky sack in a hayfield. Like hope.

Hummingbirds aren’t the only birds of the Big Yard sensing a change of seasons.