Finally, the first hummingbird(s) of the season

Yesterday evening, eating dinner on the porch, my gardening companion said "there's a hummingbird"  -- woo-hoo!  I didn't see it, but heard the whirring wings.

This morning, out my study window, was perhaps the same hummingbird, visiting Carolina Jessamine flowers.

And we saw another one this evening.

There are certainly good nectar-producing plants (for hummingbirds) in flower now in our garden -- coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), red buckeye (Aesculus pavia), columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and crossvine (Bignonia capreolata).

The early arrivals don't always cross paths with these, but this year they have!

This image is from a lovely small pocket guide to Eastern birds: Early Birds, by Minnie Miller and Cyndi Nelson, Johnstone Books

And, of course, the feeder is out and ready, too.

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Carolina jessamine

Carolina jessamine is the state flower of South Carolina and it's in flower now.

Carpenter bees are the main visitors to its flowers that I normally see, though I have seen a couple of hummingbirds brave the alkaloid-tasting nectar, too.

view from my study window, 2009 (it could have been taken this afternoon)

I've had two sightings of hummingbird visits to the Carolina jessamine over the years outside my study window, apparently, as these posts (on a Carolina jessamine search within my blog) document.

What fun to have those records!

This will be post 1401, since I started blogging in the summer of 2007 -- I can hardly imagine that, really.

A fellow naturalist (Bill Hilton) over in York, SC, and a hummingbird expert, posted this interesting piece back in 2008. about Carolina Jessamine.  There are definitely some potent alkaloids involved!

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First hummingbird 2013

I knew there had been lots of sightings nearby before now, according to the reports and map at Journey North, but I was delighted to see my first hummingbird (a male) of the season this evening.  He was visiting the porch feeder (the whir of wings was a welcome sign of his arrival). It was only the second dinner out on the porch (the unseasonably cool March weather precluded any earlier porch meals!)

I had put out fresh sugar water in mid-March (hoping for an earlier sighting -- one of the fun things about having blog post "records" is that I can look back and see when I've first seen a hummingbird in previous years -- it's fun to look back.

hummingbird visiting Campsis (at Biltmore)

This is a photo I took at Biltmore Estate (in Asheville, NC) in late August, 2009 (and my post about watching them). 

There is an enormous Campsis radicans (Trumpet-creeper) growing on the arbor on the side of the house towards the gardens.  Needless to say, the hummingbirds visiting the flowers are used to being around visitors! 

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