When do you start feeding hummingbirds in NC?

Answer 1

The standard answer used to be to take down the feeders after Labor Day to encourage your little guests to move on...but that actually isn't a good idea, because you will want to not only give your own backyard hummingbirds a final shot of calories/energy before they leave your vicinity, but also help migrating hummingbirds from more northern locales who make a stop in your area before moving on. Migration is triggered by the shorter days; it creates hormonal changes in the hummingbirds prompting them to fly south; the presence of your hummingbird feeder isn't going to override that call of nature. So -- short answer -- keep your feeder filled with nectar for about two weeks after your own local hummers leave; that will ensure that late travelers through your area can get refueled en route to the South.

Answer 2

A good guideline of when to stop feeding hummingbirds is to leave your Hummingbird feeder up for about 2 weeks after your Hummingbirds have left for the season. This will provide nectar for any Humming birds that might have gotten a late start on their southward migration due to illness, injury or other reasons. If you go 2 weeks without seeing a Hummingbird in September or October, when Humming bird migration occurs across most of the United States, this might be when to stop feeding hummingbirds and take down your feeder until next year. As the days get shorter, this decrease in the amount of daylight will trigger hormonal changes in the Hummingbird that will cause them to migrate southward. So leaving your feeder up longer at the end of the season will not cause them to hang around longer than they should. Now you should have a good idea of when to take down your hummingbird feeder and when to stop feeding hummingbirds.

Answer 3

I was curious about this myself, and all the bird watching sites I looked at pretty much said you could leave them up until there were no more hummingbirds visiting your feeder - and maybe a week or two longer in case a straggler stopped by. They went on to say that the hummingbirds know when it's time to migrate and that having an available food souce won't influence them.

In other words, when it's time to go - they go....

M. Gallaher

Centerville, TN

Answer 4

Hummers are usually gone by mid to later October, but some females and adolecent hummers stay around and in rare cases, will stay thru winter. Leave your feeders out until you no longer see activity. If you are fortunate enough to winter a hummingbird, leave the feeder out thru winter, but take it down if it's going to freeze. Put it back out when temps get above freezing so you will not damage your feeder from the cold.

Answer 5

Here in GA, you don't ever take your feeder down. Some species don't migrate. I don't know if it is the same for Wisconsin.

Answer 6

You should stop feeding them when the weather is noticeably cooler, and they haven't shown up for an extensive period of time. Or just around migration time, or late September

Answer 7

I begin to see them from mid August thru the end of September

Answer 8

No, they come to NC around March/April.

Answer 9

When their hungry

Answer 10

When is the season over for hummingbirds