Vickie Stubblefieldp age 11, of Visalia, CA
Where do hummingbirds spend the winter?
Hank is a humming bird who lives in Andy’s garden He is a scrappy! though friendly, character always busy whirring among the flowers like a little living Helicopter A few of his cousins fly tremendous distances between their winter and summer homes Some fly 500 miles non‑stop across the Gulf of Mexico But Hank plans to spend the winter in Andyia garden in southern California, He is a home body, never straying far from the leafy bush where he was born, And this is true of most of the hummingbird cousins
More than 300 different hammers have been named and classified and all of them are natives of the New World Most varieties are gear‑round residents of Central and South America, the subtropics, the high Andes and the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, Most of them, like Hank, never venture far from home, However, a few sturdy fellows fly off to build their nests and rear their young in faraway places,
Less than 20 species fly across the border into North America The pretty ruby‑throated hammer spreads out over the land east of the Mississippi A half dozen varieties cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into Arizona, The coppery‑backed rufus hammer ventures as far north as British Columbia and Alaska to build his nest Come fall, he takes the mountain flyway, where the weeds flower late in the fall, and passes through Salt Lake City in early October,
In late summer, Mr, Ruby Throat and his family stoke up on nectar and small insects and reach the Southland in late September Then all take off across the wide, watery wastes of the Gulf of Mexico to winter in Mexico In the past, some people thought the tiny birds made the long trip on the backs of bigger birds But this is not so Each makes the long flight under his own power
The hammers that come to North America as summer visitors usually spend the winter in Mexico Other hammers winter in the high Andes and fly way down to Terra del Fuego to build their nests They are nest building, of course, in December, for south of the equator this is the summer season Hammers can be spotted, then, all the way from Alaska to Cape Horn However, only a few of them migrate and most of them spend their entire lives in the subtropics, the metropolis of the hummingbird world
Jamaica is the home of the streamer‑tailed hammer, a little green fellow with large ear muffs, a red bill and a plumy tail The sappho comet is one of 'the numerous hammers of the Andes He is rosy red with green wings and a long, streaming tail of glistening copper,, The frilled coquette of Brazil has a greenish bronze body, a coral red bill, a tufted crown of copper and a ruffled white collar tipped with green and black Hank is called the anna hummingbird His tiny back glistens with peacock green and he has a ruby red patch across his throat