Thursday, November 16, 2006

its all about bird

I knew I forgot something. When Ken Lebo e-mailed that a rufous hummingbird arrived Nov. 5 at the hummingbird feeder outside his home at Green Hills Lake, I remembered that I forgot to remind everyone who feeds hummingbirds to keep the feeders up at least until Thanksgiving.

The rufous hummingbird is a hardy Western species that nests as far north as Alaska and can tolerate frigid temperatures of the late fall.

If I had to pick the top Berks bird trend stories of the last 10 years, the tale of the fall migration of the rufous hummingbird would be close to No. 1.

A rufous hummingbird appeared at the late Alex Nagy's feeder in Albany Township on Oct. 3, 1985, for the first Berks sighting of this species.

The next rufous arrived at a feeder near Boyertown on Sept. 15, 1998, and remained until Dec. 31. This bird attracted quite a bit of attention because of the length of its stay and more awareness of its rarity.

We only found out about Nagy's record when Bob Cook of Elverson re-discovered an old note Alex wrote to him about his rufous after the Boyertown bird appeared.

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