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Sweet Pea - Rufous Hummingbird Migration Transcript-1656
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Sweet Pea - Rufous Hummingbird Migration
Interview of Ann Campbell, Lover of Hummingbirds
This is BirdNote!
[Chatter & wingbeats of Rufous Hummingbird]
Last spring, Ann and Tom Campbell discovered that one of the Rufous Hummingbirds in their garden had been banded in Louisiana! The Campbells maintain the grounds of their home on Whidbey Island, Washington to attract and nourish these tiny birds. That one hummingbird flew over -- or all the way around -- the Rocky Mountains. What do the Campbells do to care for these fearless flyers?
We’ve always been careful to have adequate food … sugar-water… and then our yard provides a happy haven for the little tiny insects that hummingbirds like to eat. We’ve also attempted to provide them almost an amphitheater where they can sit on bushes ….and make the appropriate foray into the food.
What drew Ann to feeding birds?
Then one year I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, where I was in graduate school and seeking diversion … I discovered that if I put mooshed up peanut butter on my windowsill that the Red-bellied Woodpecker would come eat at my windowsill and it was a total revelation!
The female Rufous Hummingbirds will depart soon for Latin America. The males have gone already and the young will leave last.
Well, after a summer full of hummingbird excitement here, it’s a sadness when they start to leave…and so one settles in for a long winter’s nap, sort of…until March…
…when the excitement begins again! (pause) For ideas about what to plant to attract hummingbirds to your yard, come to birdnote.org.
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Written by Chris Peterson, Interview June 18, 2009
Sounds of Rufous Hummingbirds provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Call (when perched) and wing beat recorded by G.A. Keller.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2009 Tune In to Nature.org
ID# RUHU-09-2009-08-03-MM
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