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