Greetings from Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project!

Hummingbirds--which hover and fly backwards, eat flower nectar and tiny insects, and build nests from spider webs and lichens--are native only to the Western Hemisphere. They are the smallest of all birds.

Even though Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (RTHUs) are common over much of North America, we still have many unanswered questions about their breeding biology and migration. Through "Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project," researchers from Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History in York, South Carolina, are attempting to answer some of these questions. GLOBE schools, teachers, and students may participate in Operation RubyThroat and provide valuable data about the behavioral ecology of RTHUs.

I am looking forward to data GLOBE students will collect and the help it will give us in learning more about RTHUs. A great thing about GLOBE schools observations of RTHUs is that both researchers and students will be able to look at possible correlations between hummingbird data and data from other GLOBE protocols such as budburst, maximum/minimum temperatures, precipitation, and other phenological events. These relationships are not well-studied, so the sky's the limit for finding factors that may affect RTHU behaviors.

Through student observations, we also may solve some RTHU migration mysteries, such as where individual RTHUs spend the breeding and non-breeding seasons. Some scientists -- including staff at Hilton Pond Center -- actually capture RTHUs, put tiny numbered bands on one of their legs, and release them unharmed. If a banded hummingbird is encountered elsewhere by another bander or a member of the general public, the number -- when reported to the Bird Banding Lab in Laurel, Maryland -- can tell us when and where the bird was banded and by whom.

Hilton Pond Center goes one step further by color-marking all banded RTHUs with a necklace of green dye; because of this unique mark, observers don't actually need to handle an RTHU to know it was banded at the Center, and when they report color-marked birds through GLOBE they may help us trace the RTHUs unknown migratory pathways.

In the next few years, we'll be designing additional hummingbird protocols specifically for Mexico and Central America. In the meantime, students there can still watch for RTHUs from 15 October through 15 March. If you're sure you have seen an RTHU in one of those countries, please report details to espanol@rubythroat.org .

With all you looking out for hummingbirds and reporting data through GLOBE to Operation RubyThroat, who knows what exciting discoveries we may make together!

Happy Hummingbird Watching,

BILL HILTON JR.
Executive Director, Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
Principal Investigator, "Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project"