Hummers migrate in August; LBL center super stopover

Our local hummingbirds, the ones that nest at this latitude, won’t necessarily depart during August. Some might, but we typically see more results of the migration in August with the temporary drop-ins of more northern hummers, the earliest travelers, making rest stops hereabouts.

The way hummingbirds go about it, they migrate as individuals, flying little more than tree top high. A hummer may travel a dozen or 20 miles in a day, somewhat at its leisure, but every few days the tiny bird will want to stop and recover spent calories by feeding at obvious attractive sources.

Visiting hummers are quick to recognize the nutrition at handy sugar water hummingbird feeders that generous humans provide. People that place feeders with these man-made “nectar” offerings often don’t recognize that they are refueling migrators, but they do frequently note that the numbers of hummers at their feeders increase.

The birds-at-feeder count often goes highest at our latitude during August during some of the earlier days of the migration. That could be happening at a feeder or feeders near you quite soon.

Where are these little birds going? The migration takes a good long while because many of the ruby-throats will buzz southward about 1,000 miles or more. A high percentage go to wintering habitats in southern Mexico or into Central America where they can find plant and flower nectar as well as tiny insects all winter.

It typically takes a hummingbird several weeks to get way down there in winter-free habitat, but starting early, even in the thick of sultry summer, it can afford numerous layovers and dawdle where the feeding is easy. That’s a joy for those of us who have access and a good perspective to feeders for the fun of watching activity there.

The timing of the ruby-throat migration is why the Land Between the Lakes’ Woodlands Nature Station observes Hummingbird Month each August. The wildlife center maintains a cluster of hummingbird feeders that attracts a good swarm of local nesting birds. But during the migration, more than 200 hummers may visit their feeders on a typical day.

WNS staffers encourage visitors to take in the spectacle of daily feeding frenzies around feeders in the Nature Station’s backyard gardens. It is the chance to see more hummers together than at perhaps any other place in the region.

During the month of August, the Nature Station conducts a variety of hummingbird-based programs. Next weekend, Aug. 6-7, the programs run constantly during the center’s annual Hummingbird Festival.

A regular feature during the Hummingbird Festival is wildlife specialists trapping, banding and releasing a number of ruby-throats for research purposes. The process gives visitors a rare opportunity to see the delicate tiny birds at arm’s length.

Check in with the website www.landbetweenthelakes.gov and full details and a schedule of events and programs linked to Hummingbird Month.

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It is getting down to last call for those who seek to participate in this fall’s quota deer hunts in the Land Between the Lakes but have not yet applied.

Firearms quota hunts in the LBL are scheduled in October, November and December in both the federal recreation area’s Kentucky and Tennessee sectors. However, only those who apply during the month of July can be included in the computer lottery that allocates the available permits.

You may have noticed: July is almost gone. The deadline for applying for LBL quota hunts is midnight Sunday. Time is short, but because the application process if online, it takes little time.

Hopeful hunters must apply at the website www.lblquotahunt.usedirect.com/Web/Home.aspx. The fee to apply is $10.

Details are available at the general LBL website, www.landbetweenthelakes.us under the recreation and hunting tabs, but the quota hunt dates are similar to those of recent years with the addition of late youth hunts.

In the Kentucky sector, youth (ages 15 and younger) gun hunts for deer will be Nov. 5-6 and Dec. 17-18. One general, all-ages quota hunt will be Nov. 18-20. In the LBL’s Tennessee portion, youth hunts for those ages 6-16 will mirror those same dates as Kentucky’s youth hunts. Meanwhile, general quota hunts there will be Oct. 28-30 and Nov. 18-20.

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If August arrives on schedule, by all accounts expected Monday, it means that so-called “fall” hunting is close — much closer than actual fall.

Kentucky’s first helping of the new hunting year will start on the third Saturday of August with the regular squirrel season. The bushytail hunting season, the traditional one, this year kicks off Aug. 20 and continues through Feb. 28.

There is a little-heeded spring squirrel season in Kentucky, this year May 21-June 17, but the long-established hunting stint that kicks off on that third August Saturday is more recognized as the real thing. It begins with the period during which hunters can expect to find squirrels around early-ripening hickory nuts and then continues through the onset of autumn and nowadays deep into winter.

Across the Ohio River into Illinois, hunters don’t have to wait that long. Illinois’ regular squirrel hunting period is a jump ahead of that in Kentucky, beginning in the Land of Lincoln on Monday.

The Illinois squirrel season also is lengthy, running Aug. 1-Feb. 15.

Steve Vantreese is a freelance outdoors writer. Email outdoors news items to outdoors@paducahsun.com or phone 270-575-8650.