Attracting Hummingbirds
 

The best thing you can do for your garden (and for hummers) is to plant a garden using native (indigenous) plants that are appropriate for your area. Once established, native plants do not need fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides or watering. They benefit the environment and reduce maintenance costs. Here's the recipe for hummingbird syrup. Boil four cups of water and stir in one cup of white sugar. Do not use honey, which can cause a fatal fungal infection on the birds' tongues. Do not add food coloring to the solution. The red color on the feeder is sufficient. You can store the excess syrup in the refrigerator for a week or two.    The Bird Shed   Hang the feeder where you can see it from a window. If ants discover the feeder, discourage them by applying petroleum jelly to the wire that suspends the feeder. If bees begin to dominate, purchase a hummingbird feeder that comes with bee guards.   Another thing that hummingbirds love is dripping water. These tiny, aerial birds do not wade in a splash in a bird bath like a robin. Their taste is more delicate. They love dripping water, and I have watched hummingbirds fly back and forth through the water, timing each trip so that they caught a drop on their backs as they passed.   The variety of plants for attracting hummingbirds is so great that, in the process of building hummingbird gardens, you could also be building a landscape that will be the talk of the neighborhood. In selecting flowers to attract hummingbirds, you are not limited to using red flowers, although the color, red is notorious for attracting hummingbirds.   In the Top 10 list for attracting hummingbirds that I provide below, you'll see lots of red flowers, but also flowers in purple, white, orange, pink and blue. They're all rich in nectar, the hummingbird food par excellence. The Bird Shed The Bird Shed Top 10 Flowers for Attracting Hummingbirds: Bee Balm Red Columbine Delphinium and Hollyhock Butterfly Bush Catawba Rhododendron Rose of Sharon Trumpet Vine and Trumpet Honeysuckle Cardinal Vine Lantana and Fuchsia Silk Tree   Audubon 8x42 Binoculars Audubon 10x42 Binoculars HUMMINGBIRD FACTS: The smallest bird in the world, the Cuban bee hummingbird, is 2 1/4 inches long - about the size of a bumble bee. Hummingbirds, like helicopters, can hover. They can also move ahead, sideways, or backward at will. A ruby-throated hummingbird, weighing about one tenth of an ounce, can travel 600 miles in migration. Hummingbirds not only sip nectar, but also eat tiny insects and spiders. They may drink up to eight times their body weight daily in water. Although their normal body temperature is about 103°F (40°C), it may drop to 70°F (21°C) at night. They have the ability to endure temporary cool weather or cool nights by becoming dormant. There are 340 species of hummingbirds in the world and all are found only in the western hemisphere. Of these, only one, the ruby-throated hummingbird, is found regularly east of the Mississippi. Flying consumes a great deal of a hummingbird's energy. Wing beats have been measured at 20-200 beats per second.