Humming

Why didn’t I think of this before? Oh. I did. I just have never found time enough to do that, mostly because I’m always doing things that others think I should be doing instead of what I think I should be doing.

I want to plant a hummingbird garden. 

Those tiny birds are a wonder. I wonder how they beat those tiny wings so fast and if their hearts ever skip a beat the way they dart around. I wonder if they see colors since they don’t care for yellow or white, but like bold colors like orange and red. Ah, but they like pink, too. They don’t care all that much for roses or geraniums but gravitate to wildflowers and native flowers like columbine, coral bells, gladiolas, lilac, Mexican sunflower, red hot poker, scarlet runner beans and trumpet vine; those flowers that produce more nectar on which they feed. They apparently prefer jewelweed and cardinal lobella, which are wetland plants. 

For nesting, provide fuzzy plants like cinnamon fern, pussy willow, thistle and dandelion or other materials they may use for nesting. Pruning plants to promote flower growth rather than wood growth will encourage the hummingbirds to come back to your house. Planting patches of flowers, and flowers that don’t all bloom at the same time also will enhance a hummingbird garden. No insecticides should be used.

Hummingbirds eat spiders and insects. They bathe in shallow water, even if it’s just a few drops of water in a leaf. How economically and environmentally-minded they are!

Indigenous to Ohio, the ruby-throated hummingbird is found only in the Western Hemisphere, advises the ODNR (Ohio Department of Natural Resources). It is the smallest bird, weighing less than an ounce. Males are about the weight of a penny, females a little more. They summer as northerly as Canada and Nova Scotia, as easterly as the Atlantic Coast, as westerly as the central plains of the Great Plains and southerly to the Gulf Coast and the east coast of Texas. They are more of a tropical bird, arriving in Ohio between mid-April and mid-May and are gone, mostly, by mid- to late-August. They are the only hummingbird that nests east of the Mississippi River.

No wonder I like hummingbirds. They are solitary creatures. But they also are aggressive and challenge the other birds at the feeder. They nest near woods and/or water. Their feeding times are early morning, late evening and just before a major thunderstorm.

Some facts about ruby-throated hummingbirds:

·         * Males and females are together only for mating.

·         * Female rears the two offspring alone.

·         * Females are on nests by mid-June.

·         * Two broods may be produced each year.

·         * Two white eggs are the size of sweet peas.

·         * The nest is half the size of an English walnut shell.

·         * Life expectancy is 2-3 years.

The recipe for making food for hummingbirds:

1 part sugar to 4 parts water.

Boil mixture for 2-3 minutes. Let cool before filling feeder. Store unused portion in the freezer for later use. You may add a little red food coloring if you like, but it is not necessary. Do not use honey because of potential issues of fungus.

When the food in the feeder becomes cloudy or dirty, get rid of it, clean the feeder and provide fresh nectar for them. 

As I read this information about hummingbirds, a plan is formulating in my mind. A pool of water surrounded by wetland plants…Already I have honeysuckle twining on our fence. There is plenty of dandelion around. Where did they come from, seemingly overnight? But the issue is the dogs…who think they can tramp on anything within that fenced in backyard.

(c) 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield