Floral Resources for Migratory Hummingbirds in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. A Dead of Winter Knowledge Quest with David Inouye.

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) is home to many migratory scientists, and one resident breeding hummingbird species (Broad-tailed) and two species of post-breeding migrants (Rufous and Calliope). While there, the birds feed on a variety of wildflowers, but the timing of both migration and flowering of food plants is changing as a result of climate change. A 52-year study of the timing and abundance of flowering by many of the species visited by hummingbirds has documented the ongoing changes, and those data provide some insights into the challenges faced by migratory birds. David will talk about his long-term studies of the hummingbirds and the wildflowers at RMBL.

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David is retired from teaching ecology and conservation biology at the University of Maryland, but still active as a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, where he started work in 1971. He has several long-term projects there, including banding hummingbirds, studies of plant demography (individually tagged plants followed for up to 52 years), and a study of the phenology and abundance of flowering by about 125 species of plants that is now in its second generation of researchers (his son and daughter-in-law). He spends winters near Paonia, and serves on the Boards of Citizens for a Healthy Community, the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, Endangered Species Coalition, and Hummingbird Conservation Networks.