Water For Hummingbirds

Like all other birds, hummers look for a dependable supply of daily water and the seem to especially relish taking baths.  I read a story about a hummingbird that hovered over a dew-covered leaf for at least ten minutes while it brushed its breast and belly over and over against the wet surface and then preened its wet feathers. 

Have you seen birds that stand in shallow pools and splash water over their bodies with their whirling wings?  It is an amazing and sweet sight.

Hummingbirds love misters!!  I have seen them fly through them and perch under them all the while working water into their feathers.  Some birders have reported seeing hummers flying back and forth through law sprinklers. 

You might want to include a mister in your ultimate backyard to attract not only hummers but other birds as well.  Misters are inexpenseive.  Some attach to garden hoses and others attach to pumps immersed in a birdbath or shallow pool or pond.

Protect Hummingbird’s Food From Insects

Insects often compete with hummingbirds at nectar feeders.  Ants love the nectar as do several species of bees and wasps.  Ants can be stopped in their “tracks” with a simple device called an ant moat: a small plastic “cup” with eye loops at the top and bottom that fits between the feeder and the hanger.  Fill the cup with water or salad oil to prevent the ants from crawling out of it and reaching the feeder. 

Bees, wasps and other flying insects can often be discouraged by using feeders with bee guards, small plastic baskets that attch to the feeding holes.  Bee guards allow hummers to reach the nectar with their long tongues, but they prevent insects from reaching it with their feeding mouthparts.

Except for people who live in southern states that are warm enough to have hummingbirds year-round, most birdwatchers after the birds migrate southin the fall.  Bu, having feeders up and waiting when the first males arrive in the spring can be the key to having them stay around your yard for the summer.  Check with the staff at a bird specialty sotre or other birdwatchers to find out when the first birds will arrive in your area.

Watching hummingbirds has become so popular that many newspapers run articles about their arrival and when to set out feeders. Sometimes after th first few weeks of the spring migration the numbers of birds visiting your feeders drops of and you may think the hummers have deserted yoru backyard.  Keep your feeders filled though because when the new food sources thy have been exploiting begin to fade, they may come back with an appetite.  And when the young birds come out of their nests in June, they will visit your feeders regularly!

There’s no danger of leaving a feeder up “too long” and enticing hummingbirds to overwinter where it is too cold for them to survive – the instinct to migrate is stronger than any nectar you can offer at your feeder.

You can safely vary the amount of sugar in yoru nectar and offer “stronger” nectar (one part sugar to two parts water) when the birds need more calories, such as just after they arrive in spring, when they are building up fat deposits before their fall migration and after several days of unseasonably damp, cool weather.  Don’t worry, the birds will not “overdose” on the sugar; they just won’t have to feed as often.

Nectar and Feeders For Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds seem to like red, and almost all  hummingbird feeders have enough red on them to attract the birds like a magnet.  If you feel you need even more red to help hummers find your feeders the first time, hang some red ribbons from the feeder or nearby twigs, or place the feeder near red flowers. It is not necessary nor preferred to put red dye in the water. 

Once the hummers discover your feeder they will be steady customers and they’ll bring their friends!

Clean feeders are a must, so choose ones that have openings large enough to insert a bottle brush or toothbrush to scrub the inside.  Plastic feeders are generally easier to maintian than glass, and they don’t shatter if they fall.  Buy several small feeders rather than one large one, it takes a lot of hummingbirds making lots of trips to empty a quart-size feeder before the nectar sours and ferments.  And since hummers tend to be aggressively territorial, you will probably attract more of them if you provide a number of feeders and space them in open areas throughout your backyard.

It is comical and entertaining to watch the more assertive hummers declare their territory, but it is best provide enough food for everyone who comes to dinner!

Attracting Hummingbirds

Attracting hummingbirds by filling feeders with sugar-water nectar is a summertime ritual, and if you live in the South, you may have also used sugar water feders to attract wintering hummingbirds as well. 

Growing up near Cloudcroft, New Mexico, I was pleased to watch hummingbirds hover in mid-air as they fed on the hundreds of nectar feeders hanging everywhere!  It was a colorful show of these pretty flying flowers.

In recent winters, hummingbirds have been seen in almost all of the Southeastern states, and some people provide nectar year round to attract these seasonal visitors from the West.

Commerical ready-to-use and reaty-to-mix nectars are available, but most contain red dyes taht may be harmful to birds’ kidneys.  Red flowers are known to attract hummingbirds, and most hummingbird feeder manufactures add sufficient red areas to their feeders so that no red is needed in the nectar itself.

You can easily make suagar-water nectar by adding one part sugar to four parts boiling water.  Do not add red dye or nohey to your homemade nectar; netierh ingredient is needed to attract birds.  Let the nectar cool before filling your feeders and refrigerate any leftovers. 

Nectar Feeders

Most nectar feeders are designed to attract hummingbirds and have very small feeding holes and perches.  Other birds are also fond of nectar so don’t be surprised if you see orioles, mockingbirds, tanagers, chickadees, house finches, and woodpeckers attempting to drink from your hummingbird feeder.

You can choose from a wide selection of commercial feeders ranging from small feeders that have to be filled daily to ones that hold a quart or more of nectar.  Or, you can make a nectar feeder from bent glass tubing, a rubber stopper and a test-tube.  You may want to add one of the new nectar feeders with larger perches and fill it with a citrus-flavored nectar mix to attract oriolese or fill inexpensive poultry chick water dispensers with sugar-water nectar for larger birds.

Ants, bees, and other insects also feed on nectar.  You can attach an ant moat above the feeder, fill it with water, and effectively block ants from reaching the feeder.  Most nectar feeders have bee guards, barriers that prevent insects from getting close enough to suck up the nectar.

I suggest placing several nectar feeders in your backyard spacing them apart and mounting them on or near viewing windows. 

Hot summer sun has a greenhouse heating effect and ferments nectar in a feeder within a few days, making it unusable to birds.  Every three to four days, rinse out your feeder and add fresh nectar.

Birds that like nectar:  hummingbirds, orioles, woodpeckers, and some finches.

Bird Food

To attract the widest variety of birds to your feeding stations, discussed in another blog, offer as many foods in as many different kinds of feeders as you can. 

Besides the typical seeds and nuts, I’d like to talk about other food that birds love. 

Suet and Suet Mixes

Pure suet is nothing more than feef fat and is availabe at your supermarket meat counter or meat market.  Raw suet attracts many birds, including  woodpeckers, but it goes rancid quickly in hot summer temperatures.

Therefore, it’s probably best to only use raw suet during cooler weather.

If you want to make suet cakes, cut raw suet into 1/21 inch chunks and cook it over low heat until the oil is rendered out.  Then, mix in as much cornmeal as it will hold, along with peanut butter, raisins and mixed seeds.  Pack the suet mixture into a wax paper milk carton or plastic container and refrigerate it overnight. Cut off pieces of the “set” mixture to fit your wire baskets.  The rendered fat will not spoil, even in the summer heat and the birds love it! 

You can also buy suet cakes.  You will find a bewildering array of suet mixtures at stores that sell birdseed.  The cheapest high-energy cakes are as good as any other kinds, and the birds will love them all.  In hot weather climates, look for no-melt suet “dough” cakes, they won’t melt and run out of the holder like regular suet cakes do.

Birds that like suet and suet mixes:  woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, wrens, nuthatches, warblers, European Starlings, and some thrushes.

What Birds Like To Eat

Attracting birds to your backyard is easier than you think!  Just put out what they like to eat! 

Fruit is a great choice for bird food.

You may not have considered fruit as a part of the larder you can offer to birds, but some birds prefer fruit and berries.  Bluebirds, tanagers, and orioles will never frequent your seed feeders, no matter how many different varieties of seeds or how many different kinds of feeders you place in your backyard. 

But, apples will lure colorful bluebirds to a feeder, and citrus fruit may entice richly plumaged orange-and-black orioles to be regular visitors.

How To Prepare Apples as Bird Food

Slice apples in half and offer them cut side out on a nail driven into a post, feeder, or tree.  Or, dice apples and place them in a food dish attached to a feeder to attract bluebirds and American Robins.

Birds That Like Apples:  jays, orioles, robins, bluebirds, mockingbirds, grosbeaks, and woodpeckers.

Yes, We have Bananas!  Bananas As Bird Food

Lots of tropical birds eat bananas and many of our summering songbirds spend their wintersin the tropics, but we doen’t often think of or see bananas offered to birds at feeders because they spoil so quickly.  You can make bananas last longer by leaving on thepeel and slicing them into inch-long sections and placing them on the feeder or by removing only one long section of peel. 

Birds that like bananas:  Northern Mockingbirds, tanagers, American Robins, orioles, and warblers.

Ripe Bananas

Have you ever had fruit flies hanging around your ripe bananas on your kitchen counter?  Well, take them outside for bird food!  You can hang ripe bananas near your bird feeders to attract fruit eating birds as well as insects, including fruit flies-which in turn will attract small insectivorous birdsthat will enjoiy the concentration of live, fast food.

Birds that like ripe bananas: hummingbirds (they’ll eat the fruit flies), warblers, and gnatcatchers.

Grapes, Raisins, and Soaked Raisins

Grapes are readily taken by a number of species of birds and will go further if you slice them before placing them in your feeders.  Many birds eat raisins as they are, but for variety try soaking them in water and offer the “instant” grapes at your feeders, you’ll cause quite a commotion! 

Birds that like grapes, raisins, and soaked raisins:  Bluebirds, American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Northern Mockingbirds, Gray Catfirds, thrashers, woodpeckers, grosbeaks, European Starlings, and wrens.

Oranges

Slice oranges in half and offer them cut side out on a nail driven into a post, feeder, or tree (loose sliced and sectioned oranges are quickly carried away). 

You can also fasten orange halves to a platform feeder, a plank placed on the ground, or a tree branch close to the ground.

Birds that like oranges:  orioles, tanagers, mockingbirds, thrashers, and woodpeckers.

All About A Bee

• There are 16,000 species. Most are solitary insects; only about 5 percent are social bees, the most common being the honeybee. As many as 80,000 of them colonize a single hive.
• Drones—the male honeybees—live only for mating with the queen. If there is a shortage of food in the hive, the workers kick their lazy, gigolo asses out.
• To die for: When drones mate, they die afterwards from a ruptured abdomen. Sex detaches their endophallus, which gets stuck inside the queen. 
• She continues to mate—the drones aren’t terribly smart, apparently—until she collects more than 70 million sperm from multiple males.
• The queen was known as the king until the late 1660s, when Dutch scientist Jan Swammerdam dissected the hive’s big bee and discovered ovaries.
• Someone call Homeland Security! Australian researchers discovered that honeybees can distinguish human faces. The insects were shown black-and-white pictures and given treats for right answers.  Oh, someone did call Homeland Security.
• In the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, Los Alamos scientists have trained bees to recognize explosives.
• The term “honeymoon” is derived from an old northern European custom in which newlyweds would consume a daily cup of mead, made with fermented honey, for a month.  The term “bee’s knees” was coined by American cartoonist Tad Dorgan, who was also responsible for “the cat’s pajamas,” “the flea’s eyebrows,” “the canary’s tusks,” and (apropos of nothing) “Yes, we have no bananas.”
• During World War I, honey was used to treat the wounds of soldiers because it attracts and absorbs moisture, making it a valuable healing agent.
• Honey never spoils. Ever.
• Bumblebees can estimate time intervals.
• Researchers have found that the insects extend their tongues in tandem with the rhythm of a sweet reward. This aids in the hunt for nectar, whose availability waxes and wanes.
• Melittosphex burmensis, recently found preserved in amber in a mine in northern Myanmar, is the oldest bee known. It lived 100 million years ago.
• After he had pioneered the laws of genetics with pea plants, Austrian monk Gregor Mendel bred a strain of hybrid bees. Unfortunately, they were so vicious he had to kill them.
• The buzz that you hear when a bee approaches is the sound of its four wings moving at 11,400 strokes per minute. Bees fly an average of 15 miles per hour.
• A newly hatched queen immediately kills all other hatched and unhatched queens in the hive.
• The Honeybee Boogie: In 1943 Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch published his study on the dances bees perform to alert fellow workers. A round dance indicates that food is close by; a waggle dance means it is distant.
• Worker bees have strictly regimented roles, including that of undertakers who drag their dead siblings from the hive.
• On the April 1984 Challenger flight, 3,300 bees, housed in a special but confining box, adapted perfectly to zero gravity and built a nearly normal comb. But they didn’t go to the toilet. Since bees excrete only outside the hive, they held it in for seven days. A NASA spokesperson said the space hive was “just as clean as a pin.”
• According to an old wives’ tale, a bee entering your house means a visitor is on his way, and if you kill the bee, the visitor won’t be a pleasant one. Suffice to say, invite that unexpected honeybee guest to sit down to tea.

Water Sources For Birds

Birds need water as much as they need food.  Although the food they eat provides some water, they depend primarily on clean freshwater sources in their environment.  If you include just one source of water in your ultimate bird-friendly backyard you will atract the greatest number of different species.  Birds of all kinds will flock to it to drink, bathe, cool off and sometimes make mud for building their nests.

Offering water can be as simple as filling a shallow container and placing in an accessible place, or it can involve digging a pond or constructing a living stream with a triple waterfall and lost lagoon.  The most important things is to have fun.  Don’t make providing water so complicated that you don’t enjoy doing it.  Keep it simple.  A flower pot regularly cleaned with chemical free cleansers and filled with fresh water regularly will work great!

Helpful Hints for Providing Water Sources for Birds: 

• The best water conatiners are shallow, one to three inches deep
• If the container is deeper than three inches, provide rocks or perches so birds can rest and preen their feathers.  Containers with shallow, gradually sloping bottoms are ideal.
• Make sure the containers have rough-textured bottoms, since birds don’t have nonskid feet.
• The nonskid stick on strips for bathtubs work great; you can paiint the bottoms with adhesive and then pat on sand for traction.
• Your first water container can be an upside-down garbage can lid, a shallow plastic bowl, or an inexpensive birdbath.

Once the birds spot your water container, they will continue to visit the container if you keep it clean and filled.  If you build it, they will come, so expect them and be ready.  You will be so excited when they find your watering hole.

How to Clean the Bird’s Water Source:

• Change the water daily.
• Scrub out the container with a brush and high-pressure hose to remove droppings, algae, and debris. 
• Don’t use swimming pool or other chemicals to kill algae in a container used by the birds.  The chemicals will harm them.  If you use soap to clean the container, rinse it thoroughly.

Where to Place Your Water Source For Birds:

• Place water containers in open areas that have at least partial shade, shaded areas not only keep the water cooler, but the absence of sunlight shows the growth of algae. 
• Place the containers away from feeders so that seed hulls and bird droppings from these high traffic areas don’t foul the water. 
• Although the containers should be in open areas, make sure they are within ten feet of protective shrubbery and low trees to protect birds from cats, hawks, and other predators.  They need to have a place to fly to!!

Keep the water from freezing:

• If you live in an area where the winters are cold enough to freez water, place a forty-watt lightbulb under the container or use one of the commerically available birdbath heaters. 
• Don’t use an aquarium heater because they are built for indoor use. 
• Be sure to use grounded outdoor wiring to connect your heater to your household electrical power supply.
• The heater does not create a hot tub or sauna for the birds amid the ice and snow, it just keeps the water from freeziing so thirsty birds can get the water they need. 
• Do not put antifreeze, alcohol, or other chemicals in the water in an attempt to keep it from icing over, these chemicals are toxic for all animals and birds and humans!

Feeding Your First Bird and Attracting Birds To Your Backyard

Place your feeders, nesting boxes, and birdbaths where the birds will feel safe from people s well as squirrels, cats, and other animals and where you can readily see the birds as you go about your daily routine.  You may wnt to place at least one feeder a few inches from your favorite viewing window.  You can buy feeders that have a one-way mirror at the back and either attach directly to the window or fit into the window like an air-conditioning unit; the birds feed in a box almost inside your home.

Youo may find yourself spending big chunks of your day learning abut the birds you see right outside your windowpane.

You are probably already interested in birds and feeding them, or you wouldn’t be at this site!  If you are one of the more than sixty million Americans already hookded on making your backyard better for both you and birds, the information here shold help you improve on the good thing you already have going.

Feedng Your First Bird

If you haven’t fed your first bird yet, just get a packaage of black oil sunflower seeds at your supermarket, garden center, or backyard bird feeding store, and scatter the seeds on the ground.  It’s that easy!!  You’ve now taken your first step in attracting birds to your backyard! 

You can stop here or you can naturescape your entire property to attract birds and other wildlife by adding appropriate plantings, birdbaths and cscadiing waterfalls, feeders of all varieties, and hundreds of nesting boxes nd shelves.  You might even mount outdoor microphones connected to indoor speakers to bring the sounds of your backyard birds right inside your house.  Talk about beautiful music!

Whether you stick with throwing seed on the ground or go on to create the ultimate backyard for birdwatching, perhaps the best reward of all is watching a wild creature accept your offering of food, shelter, or water.  So use the following suggestions for adding feeds, food , nestiing sites, plantings, dust baths, and water sources to attract birds, then pick up your binoculars and enjoy watching!

Need to reduce stress?  Take up the rewarding project of helping nature!

How To Attract Birds To Your Backyard

Many people attract bitds to their backyrd as a way of getting back in touch with nature, getting back to a time when people lived as an integral part of the natural world.  Other people attract birds to help reverse the current decrease in songbird populations, especially the neotropical migratory species that breed in North America but winter south of the United States in the New World tropics. 

Urbination continues to destroy natural wildlife habitats, and even the relatively small efforts we make to provide foraging areas and breediing sites in our backyards can make a tremendous difference in the survival of these birds.  Also, singing birds make most people feel better than traffic, sirens, machinery, and other man-made background sounds.  How relaxing!

Still other people attract birds to upgrade their property.  National Wildlife Federation studies show that landscaping increases property values as much as 20% and that landscaping to attract wildlife adds as much value as commercial landscaping plus the bonus of letting you watch birds and other animals in your backyard.

Plantings that provide protective shading, wind screening and humidity also reduce yoru home heating and cooling bills, make your home blend in better with its natural surroundings, and give you and your wildlife guests a greater degree of privacy.  Providing for and watchinh birds and other wildlife will give you a tremendous amount of aesthetic pleasure, a quality hands-on natural history and ecology experience, and a way of relieving the stress of modern life.

Attracting birds to your backyard will let you enjoy their speedy action, great feather colors, interesting songs, and fascinating habits up close and personal.  You will be able to observe the rushed stopovers of spring and fall migrant birds, the more leisurely stays of breeding bids and their fledglings, and the seasonal visits of wintering birds.  You will have a front row seat to nonstop action; the fierce diving dogfights of hummers around your nectar feeders between visits to the flowers in your yard.  The constant comings and goings of chickadees and titmice as they peck out one sunflower seed at a time and fly off to a perch to peel away the seed coat.  Courting male doves will entertain you as they inflate their chests and necks and aggressively pursue the look-alike females on the ground beneath your feeders.  White breasted Nuthatches will spread their wings and tails while pivoting in short semicircles over your suet feeder to stand off woodpeckers.  You will witness the constant fluttering of activity, as birds jockey for position at your feeder as well as long periods when no bird moves, as they freeze in place like feathered statues and rivet their eyes on an encroaching hawk.  The shrill alarm note of a Blue Jay will send the entire compny madly dashing for the nearest cover before a predator gets close enough to launch its attack. Adults and fledglings  will drink and splash frequently in your birdbath.

The term “backyard” does not limit you to the backyard of your house by any means.  Make plants to attract birds to your entire property.  If you can talk yur n4eighbors into sharing your interest in attracting birds, you will b able to off er a wider variety of planned habitats and thereby increase the number and variety of birds you attract.  If you live in a subdivision or discrete residential area, you might see if you can organize the entire neighborhood into “wildlifescaping.”  You may even want to hang a feeder or mount a nesting box or ledge at your workplace – go “green!”

If you provide suitable food, shelter, nd wtaer, irds will “flock” to your backyrd, and if you offer a wide variety of thrse basic necessities, you will attract a wide variety of birds.  You can provide food and shelter by planting and maintaining trees, shrubs, flowers and other vegetation.  You can supplement the fruit, seeds, nectar, sap, and insects provided by the plants by offering feeders filled with seeds, suet, or nectar.  Nesting boxes will help supplement the natural shelter and if you make brush piles and other suitable covers – word will “get around” in the bird family, they do TALK you know!

Providing pools or ponds or bird baths will attract some species tht, because of their insect or fruit diets, may not be tempted to visit your feeders.  For instsnce, robins, bluebirds, waxwings, and a host of warblers and vireos frequent good watering holes but rarely come to feeders.