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Call Of The Hummingbirds

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: January 26, 2009

VALRICO - Once the sound of the clattering garbage truck dies down and chattering schoolchildren load onto the bus, you can hear the twittering. Little hissing contests taking place among the flowering plants.

Look closer and you can see them - the tiniest of flying machines, flitting from one blossom to the next, fending off the competition in the scramble for an easy winter meal. Each claims its territory in the maze of red, purple and orange flora.

For years, Steve Backes has watched the drama play out in his secret suburban garden. Dozens of hummingbirds making their way from northern climes headed to Central America for winter lay over in his yard, drawn by the many flowers and feeders.

Not only do his efforts aide these tiny treasures in their migration, they also will pay off in the future. Scientists will use the information collected in Valrico and in other yards across the Southeast to learn more about these miniature wonders - when and how they migrate, what they eat, how long they live.

"In my yard, for seven months of the year over the past six years, I've had hummingbirds," Backes said. On one recent day, he had company.

Fred Bassett, a volunteer bird bander from the Hummer/Bird Study Group, headed down from Alabama to spend a day banding hummers in Valrico. He hoped above all to capture a rufous hummingbird that has visited Backes' yard for six years in a row.

Sitting patiently on his front porch with a small fishing reel in his hand, its line connected to a cage door, Backes waited quietly for a hummingbird to enter and land on a feeder suspended inside. The moment he spied a catch, he tugged the line, dropped the door and hollered for Bassett.

With a few practiced moves, Bassett removed the tiny flier and hustled it to the tailgate of his truck. He gently tucked the bird in the cut-out toe of a lady's stocking and carefully placed it on a jewelers' scale - the kind used to weigh diamonds.

"It takes about 10 of these guys to make an ounce," he said.

"Three grams, standard weight," Bassett announced after weighing the ruby-throated hummer.

He measures each one and searches for any standout markings that might help him identify the bird in years to come.

Meticulous records go into his logbook. The data is later transferred to the National Bird Banding Laboratory in Laurel, Md. From there, the information will be disseminated to biologists across the nation for use in their own hummingbird studies.

When Bassett first started banding hummingbirds about 15 years ago, most of the research told him there was only one kind found in Florida - the ruby-throated.

Since then, using information from birders throughout the state, he has successfully banded and identified nine different species in Florida.

"A lot of gardeners attract hummingbirds, but they don't necessarily know one from another," Backes said. The more they learn, the more they can aide the birds and enjoy the fruits of their labor, he said.

And that payoff is well-worth the effort, Backes said, even though being a backyard hummingbird sitter can be monotonous at times.

When the bander arrives, for example, Backes removes all the feeders from his yard - all but one, that is, the one inside the cage.

"It can be tedious sitting here waiting for one to go in," he said. "On the other hand, they are amazing little things."
Backes invites the public to visit his Web site to learn more about hummingbirds found in this area. Go to http://mysite.verizon.net/resu64md/yardhummers.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566. Keyword: Hummingbird, to view an audio slideshow about hummingbird banding by photojournalist Jim Reed.

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