The Wildlife Gardener's Guide to Hummingbirds and Songbirds from the Tropics

by Griggs, Jack

• ISBN13: 9780062737427
• ISBN10: 0062737422
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-13
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The Cornell Lab series presents the definitive guide to creating backyards that attract hummingbirds, orioles, warblers, and the many colorful migrant songbirds from the tropics. 175 full-color photos & illustrations.

Table of Contents

Foreword	6	(3)
Introduction	9	(2)
Using Feeders to Attract the Birds of Summer	11	(14)
Susan Day
How We Changed Our Backyards for the Birds of Summer	25	(26)
Susan Day
Jack Griggs
Growing Plants for Hummingbirds	51	(56)
Ron Rovansek
Meet the Birds of Summer	107	(16)
Jack Griggs
Index	123	(3)
Resources	126

Excerpts

The Wildlife Gardener's Guide to Hummingbirds and Songbirds from the TropicsChapter One
Using Feeders to Attract the Birds of Summer
Setting Out Feeders for Hummers -- For Our Pleasure and Their Satisfaction

People feed hummingbirds for their own enjoyment, and it is expected that you will place feeders where you can easily see them. For most of the Backyard Wildlife Habitat (BWH) experts I spoke with, that meant not too far from a window, but there are other places that people commonly place hummingbird feeders, such as on decks and patios near container gardens of hummingbird plants. I put some of mine on poles in flower beds because I enjoy the hummers' company while I'm weeding and caring for their plants.

Lanny Lincoln, in Iowa, spends a lot of time in his workshop, so he mounts a feeder on his garage window. "I can watch them from my workbench," he says. "Their feet look like tiny little wires!"

Because hummers are so small, Pricilla Trudell, of rural New Hampshire, prefers feeders that attach directly to windows. "I can get a really good took at the birds," she says, "and I can can also tell when the feeders need to be cleaned or refilled."

Pricilla, Lanny, and the many other BWH experts I heard from provide habitat for their hummingbirds. They have yards full of trees and shrubs near their feeders that provide perches and safety for them. If you hang your feeder in a spot surrounded by expanses of lawn or under an isolated tree, hummers will be unlikely to visit it.

It is important to make sure that hummers can find your feeder. Not surprisingly, I heard that if hummers don't see a feeder, they won't come to it. Some hummers might not recognize a feeder as a food source even if they do see it.

Billy Snider, of Harlingen, Texas, suspected that many hummers simply didn't see the feeders in his small urban backyard. He and his wife, Sue, had 5 or 10 ruby-throats at a time visiting feeders during fall migration, but he suspected there were many more passing migrants that he wasn't attracting.

Billy wondered if the reason he didn't have more hummers was because most of his feeders were under the eaves of his house or in trees, where they weren't easily visible from the air. To see if that was true, Billy placed a feeder at the edge of his property in a spot where it would be visible from above for nearly a mile in three out of four directions.

"Within days of setting up this 'Open' sign, we had 20 ruby-throats at our feeders," Billy reports. "They stayed for three or four days before moving on." More waves of ruby-throats followed, and during peak migration, the Sniders estimated there were between 50 and 75 hummers in their yard at a time.

A hummer enthusiast in western Colorado says, "In spring I put out orange fluorescent flagging tape in bushes and trees. Since hummers are attracted to orange and red, they make a beeline to the tape." He believes that hummers see each other when they're foraging for food and "birds attract more birds."

Pricilla Trudell says, "The way to attract hummingbirds is to hang red clothes in all the windows each spring." on the outside of each window, Pricilla hangs a feeder. "If I don't get hummers when they first arrive, they'll go somewhere else to nest. if they stop here, some will stay for the season," she says.

By placing feeders near red flowers, you'll greatly increase your odds of having hummers find them, Even though most feeders have red plastic blossoms on them to attract the inquisitive little snoops, the first place hummers look for food is real flowers. Some hummgardeners snatch the first blooming plants of the season at their local nurseries to have something blooming when their hummers return. if hummers arrive before your first flowers bloom, try "Planting" Pots or beds of artificial red flowers near your feeders. The larger the red target, the better.

No one I spoke with still adds red food color to nectar to create a beckoning splash of red. While it's not been proven that red dyes are harmful to hummingbirds, the universal attitude is why take a chance? You can just as easily tie a red ribbon to the feeder to get a hummer's attention.

There are other considerations in the placement of nectar feeders besides making them easy for hummers and their hosts to see. Hummers have several specific concerns about feeder placement, the most important of which is their safety from ambush. Have you ever noticed a hummer pull its bill out of a feeder or flower and back away momentarily while feeding? It's checking to see that nothing is zeroing in on it. A hummer feels safest where it is able to see the surroundings without anything blocking the view and where it has a clear path to nearby cover.

Hummers also care a great deal about whether they have to sit in the sun and drink heated nectar or lounge in the shade and sip nectar at ambient temperature. They might visit a feeder hanging in the sun on a cool morning, but at midday, they will typically ignore a feeder in the sunshine in favor of one in the shade. Nectar heated by the sun also spoils much faster than cooler shaded nectar.

The Wildlife Gardener's Guide to Hummingbirds and Songbirds from the Tropics. Copyright © by Jack Griggs. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Wildlife Gardener's Guide to Hummingbirds and Songbirds from the Tropics by Jack Griggs, Susan Day
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.