YOUR RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRDS ARE WELL

Those of you in eastern North America with hummingbird feeders will be happy to know that your summer hummers are down here zipping around as lustily as ever. I haven't seen any with the summer male's glittering, ruby-red throat, or gorget, however. Here they wear the plainer female or juvenile plummage with greenish backs and whitish underparts.

In this part of the Yucatan we also have Buff- bellied, Cinnamon and Mexican Sheartail Hummingbirds, but these are all easy to distinguish from Ruby- throats, which may be the most common species during winters. Here we are at the Ruby-throat's northernmost winter distribution point, the winter populatioin extending on south through southern Mexico and all the Central American countries to Panama. Ruby-throats are completely absent from here during the northern summer.

Next to my lodging each morning I see a Ruby-throat busily taking nectar from Dwarf Poincianas, POINCIANA PULCHERRIMA, which are 15-ft-high bushes with feathery, twice-compound leaves, and which right now are just loaded with cantaloupe-size clusters of silver-dollar-size, red and orange blossoms. What a gorgeous thing to see.

Those are Dwarf Poinciana flowers, without any hummingbirds, at the right. Notice the long, pollen-producing stamens, which reach out and daub visiting hummers with pollen.