Lately, there have been ruby throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) constantly buzzing around at both of the feeding stations. There are two factors involved. First and foremost, I changed from using commercial hummingbird food to using a homemade sugar and water formula. Almost from day one, when I made the swap there were more hummies coming to eat. With the commercial food there were two or three birds a week, if I was lucky. Now I see multiple birds each day. And the food disappears much faster. No longer am I throwing most of it away because it went bad. Instead, I’m needing to make more food because the feeders are empty. The other factor that has them coming around so much is that they need to fatten up before heading out to migrate south for the winter. Most of the adult males seem to have already left and mostly I’m seeing females and immature males like this one. They will all have gone too by the end of September. You can see this young man is just starting to get a couple red feathers on his neck. He’s basically a teenager getting ready to start out on his first big adventure. In other words, he’s in the prime of his life.