Petra Richli

Most hummingbirds migrate south to Mexico or South America for the winter, but some hardy species stay in parts of the U.S. year-round. If you’re lucky enough to see these tiny birds flitting around your yard in the colder months, you can help them thrive with one simple tip: keep your feeder clean and filled with fresh sugar water.

This advice applies anywhere hummingbirds live year-round, which in the U.S. includes California, Arizona, Oregon, Texas, parts of Washington, and southern New Mexico. In fact, in the Pacific Northwest, the winter territory is extending even farther north.

Holly Grant, project assistant at NestWatch , a community-science program run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, explains: “Anna’s hummingbirds in the Pacific Northwest have begun spending

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