Featured photo at top by Alex Eberts.
Editor’s note: Wow! Ohio has been graced with a number of avian rarities this autumn and winter. Gerry Brevoort and her husband John were amazed to discover that their passion for growing native plants and feeding hummingbirds would lead them to hosting a state-record male Anna’s Hummingbird. And they didn’t keep it to themselves. They graciously allowed hundreds of excited birders to come to their home and share the delight. Please enjoy Gerry’s account of her experience of hosting a recent rarity. Thank you to the Brevoorts for their warm welcome!
Shock. Disbelief. Sheer Delight!
By Gerry Brevoort
These were the reactions of my husband, John, and I in late October 2024. It had just been confirmed that we were playing host to the first male Anna’s Hummingbird recorded in the state of Ohio. We were still seeing two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in our yard, and our blooming sage and nectar feeders were popular snack bars.
Our backyard has a 100-year-old oak tree and large gardens with over 110 species of native perennials. It was clear that this vagrant visitor was not in my yard by sheer chance, but that he came (and stayed) because of the food, shelter, and water provided for him by our native patch, and that felt extremely validating to us. And so began our 91-day saga with this magnificent Anna’s Hummingbird. With normal range along the West coastal regions, he had traveled unfathomable distances to arrive here, though no larger than a ping-pong ball and weighing no more than a nickel. We worked quickly to get the word out and open up our yard for visitors. And, wow, did folks flock to see this amazing bird.
Over the next weeks, we hosted 453 visitors from six states and three countries, aged four months to 94 years. This Anna’s was extremely cooperative and seemingly unbothered by crowds during the autumn months. Folks were able to stand on our driveway for wonderful views, which allowed several birders using wheelchairs, canes and walkers to enjoy the spectacle—not usually the case when “chasing” a rare bird, which more likely involves uneven terrain and other physical challenges.
The smiles, the squeals and the palpable joy among the onlookers filled us with such gratitude. There were visitors who had never before used binoculars or looked at a bird up close, marvelous photographers who generously shared their incredible images with us, and even a visit from the first person in the world to see 10,000 species in the wild—our visitors ran the gamut! At one point, I remember looking across the sea of heads, which included groups of Amish birders, OSU ornithology students, and neighbors who just happened to be out walking their dogs and wandered down our driveway to find out what the commotion was all about. A medical intern from a nearby hospital bicycled over during his lunch break and tallied a “lifer,” dressed in his scrubs and bike helmet. This bird brought together such a diverse, inquisitive, and energized band of humans!
Folks observed and photographed this Anna’s while flowers bloomed, leaves turned golden, foliage browned and littered the ground, the trees’ bare limbs swayed in high winds, snow fell, and ice crusted the Redbud branches. He completed his tail molt and we were noticing a steady increase in his magenta head plumage. What a jewel he was when he’d turn his head just so, or when the sun would reflect at just the right angle, and we would audibly gasp.
As autumn became winter, we hung heated feeders. We had a dedicated team of friends who helped to check that the nectar didn’t ice up and that the bird was feeding regularly. I can’t express enough gratitude to those who helped us during these amazing 3 months—the experts who initially identifed the bird, the licensed bander who gave this bird a stellar bill of health and the opportunity to track his future path, the birder pals who checked in on us regularly to provide encouragement and a sense of optimism (even when the weather became challenging), and the entire birding community whose gracious presence and unfettered joy over this bird were so uplifting. The most frigid conditions while the Anna’s was here included a wind chill of -4 degrees. Yet he vigorously flew and fed, perched and preened—he was the very definition of resiliency, tenacity, and strength, laser-focused on coping and surviving.
Interestingly, on the day he departed our yard, he fed in a frenzied way in the early morning for 50 minutes…and then he was gone. That exact pattern (“frantic” morning feeding, then gone by afternoon) has been observed in multiple Rufous Hummingbirds that find themselves in a Midwest winter. It is also known that some birds can detect changes in barometric pressure better than we can, giving them more advance warning of storms. Our bird’s departure preceded the widespread polar vortex event by less than 48 hours. We hope that he is now on a journey to his best life and will continue to thrive, wherever he lands. We have no way of knowing why or how he got here in the first place…and we don’t know to where he traveled after he left us on January 21, 2025.
Most likely, we’ll never know for sure, but we’ve chosen to be optimistic and honor the majesty of Nature’s uncanny power to survive! What we DO know is that he was an absolute gift, a model of resilience and perseverance, and an unbridled beauty who graced us with lifelong memories.