How To Attract Hummingbirds

Gardening > Advice May 24, 2005

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By Marilyn Pokorney

Planting a garden full of red flowers is the best way to attract these beautiful jeweled birds.

Plant bee balm, butterfly weed, columbine, cardinal Flower, coral bells, cosmos, dahlias, four-o'-clock's, fuchsias, morning glory, petunias, zinnias, trumpet vine, or honeysuckle. A web search will reveal many more.

Be a hummingbird magnet by having as much red in your backyard as possible. Besides flowers use gazing balls, backyard furniture, ribbons, and other yard decorations. Create both sun and shade areas in your hummingbird garden. Offer an abundance of nesting materials to encourage nesting females. Hummingbirds prefer downy like materials, spider webs, ferns, moss and lichens for their nests. Make certain that there is always fresh water available for drinking as well as for bathing. Set up misters. Hummingbirds love to take "leaf baths," rubbing against wet leaves or just sitting on a branch having the mist fall upon them.

Avoid pesticides. These chemicals kill the insects that hummingbirds eat for protein and can also sicken or kill the birds.

Add plenty of places for the birds to perch. Hummingbirds spend around 80% of their time sitting on twigs, shrubs, and other available resting places.

Provide red hummingbird feeders hung about thirty feet apart throughout your yard. Never fill your feeders with anything but a sugar-water mix of 1 part white sugar to 4 parts boiled water. Do not use food coloring or artificial sweeteners of any kind, and never, never use honey which can develop a fungus which can be fatal to hummingbirds. Clean and refill the feeders every 3 days. More often if temperatures are above 85 degrees F.

Hang the feeders on a pole in a flower bed or on a porch or deck near flowers hummingbirds are attracted to.

You can also tie 18 to 24 inch strips of red ribbon to the feeder. The blowing ribbons will make it easier for the hummingbirds to see.

Place feeders at various heights. Some hummingbird species like to feed at heights of 12 to 15 feet, while others feed on low growing flowers and prefer feeders placed closer to the ground.

Avoid hanging feeders in direct sunlight, which will cause nectar to spoil more quickly.

Once a week the feeder must be washed with vinegar and water or a 10% chlorine solution and scrubbed clean.

Create a separate feeder for Bees and wasps. Fill it with a mixture of 3:1 or even a 2:1 ratio of water to sugar. The insects have a very strong preference for rich, high-sugar mixtures and will quickly decide to use the feeder with the higher sugar content.

To repel ants, apply vinegar or powdered cloves to ant trails. Put adhesive tape applied sticky-side-out to the hanging wire. Experts advise that petroleum jelly not be used because the greasy substance gets onto the birds and make it hard for the birds to clean their feathers properly. Use ant traps instead.

About The Author: For more information visit:

http://www.apluswriting.net/garden/hummingbird.htm

Copyright: 2005 Marilyn Pokorney
Author: Marilyn Pokorney
Freelance writer of science, nature, animals and the environment.
Also loves crafts, gardening, and reading.
Website: http://www.apluswriting.net

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By (Guest Post) 08/18/2006

Each year I plant a beautiful plant called:
Cardinal Plant
I always have hummingbirds.

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By Rebey 08/18/2006

Attracting Hummingbirds:
This article is found in http://www.backyardbirdsandgardens.com/content/view/59/41/ along with other information and some really good hummingbird feeders.
* Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red and flowers that are tubular in shape.
* A hummingbirds diet mainly consists of protein-rich insects, but with their long, grooved tongues they sip nectar from flowers for energy. You can attract hummingbirds to feeders using a nectar substitute that can be made by combining four parts water with one part sugar.
* Boil or heat the solution using a microwave oven for 1 or 2 minutes. Heating the solution sterilizes it so it wont spoil.
* Never use red food coloring. Some wildlife experts say it can be harmful to hummingbirds, causing throat cancer among other things.
* Hang the feeder in a conspicuous place, preferably in the shade and away from any wind. Clean and fill your feeder at least once a week to keep it free of disease-causing mildew and bacteria. Two or three times a week. Avoid using anything but warm/hot water and a soft brush to clean your feeder.
* A rich insect life in your yard will also attract hummingbirds. Insects thrive in diverse landscapes full of native vegetation and flowers and shrubs that bloom at different times.
* Hummingbirds can be aggressive and rarely share their nectar politely. To help them avoid conflicts, place more than one feeder on a different side of your house so that it is out of sight of the other feeder.
* An early start in the season increases your chances of getting more hummingbirds to your feeders. Generally, feeders should be readied three weeks prior to Mothers Day or around mid-April. However, its never too late to put one out. An excellent time for seeing hummingbirds is August, when both the adults and their young are about. Hummingbirds will stay around yards until the first of October. Leaving a feeder out beyond that time will not stop them from migrating.

Interesting Hummingbird Facts:

* Hummingbirds are the smallest birds in the world and are only found in the Western Hemisphere (North, South and Central America). In relation to their size, they lay the largest eggs. (An ostrich is 50 times the size of its egg whereas a hummingbird is only 8 times as large.)
* Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly forward, backward, shift sideways and stop in midair. They beat their wings from 60 to 200 times per second and can reach speeds of 60 mph.
* During migration, hummingbirds fly thousands of miles. They begin in Mexico and Central America, travel to North America, breed and return again in the fall. Unlike geese and ducks, hummingbirds migrate as individuals. They have their own internal compasses, possibly remembering certain landmarks along the way.

* The Ruby-throated hummingbird crosses the Gulf of Mexico, flying 500 miles non-stop. In order to make the trip, the bird will energize itself with fat stored from drinking a lot of nectar.
* Studies, in which hummingbirds were tagged, have shown that they will return to the same feeder each year.

Flowers To Attract:

Annuals-

· Begonia, Cigar Plant, Cosmos, Fuchsia, Geranium, Impatiens, Lantana, Nasturtium, Nicotiana, Parrots Beak (Lotus Berthelotii), Petunia, Phlox, Salvia, Scaevola, Shrimp Plant (Justicia), and Zinnia.

Perennials-

· Agastache, Bee Balm, Coral Bells, Dwarf Delphinium, Penstemon, Phlox, Salvia, Verbena, and Veronica.

Vines-

· Canary Creeper, Cardinal Climber, Clematis, and Morning Glory.

Hope you enjoyed this information about hummingbirds as much as I did.
To see the pretty hummingbirdfeeder in photo go to
http://www.backyardbirdsandgardens. ... t/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=12

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By dolphinnut25 08/22/2005

why would somebody want to feed bees and wasps. that just seems like you are giving them an invitation to sting you if you feed them personally i enjoy feeding hummingbirds i would never feed bees or wasps

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