Get your Hummingbird feeders up! ;->

I need a new feeder. You all are so lucky to have humming birds. I keep feeding them and seldom see any. How high do you hang your feeders? May be mine is too low.
Are your feeders protected in any way, near the house, I WANT HUMMERS. JB

I made a coat hanger hook and hang it on the spouting. That puts them just outside the window where we wash dishes a foot or so from the house and maybe five feet above ground.. The feeder is close by some shrubs but this seems to make no difference. This is the place where we had them for many years.

Still no hummers this year. We have only had them here for two or three days so far. Our patio flowers are begining to bloom. This too should be an attractor for them.

Then mine may be too low. It is near my greenhouse and some blooming flowers but it has been a week and no hummers. The other birds eat there on the grass, the seeds I throw out from my inside birds. Would that be frightening to them? Thanks for the info. JB

Many folks hang a hummer feeder under the overhang of a porch. Others hang them high but near entrance ways to shops so customers can view the hummers. I don't think there is any one right place. Low to the ground may invite cats to think it's fresh lunch.

Thanks so much. I am going to move mine to a higher location immediately. I do so want to keep it near the house so I can see when i get them. If.......I get them. Oh where oh where are my little hummers?????JB

I never saw one this year and I don't know why. Is there anything that they avoid?

It is good to know I was not the only one who did not see a hummingbird. I kept my feeder clean and full and NOTHING HAPPENED. jb

Thanks, JBerger, I was beginning to think that it was just me. I did see 1 or 2 last year. I had a really aggressive Bluebird here this year. I was thinking that maybe it scared the hummer and friends away.

This message was edited Sep 20, 2009 12:42 PM

Our HB season started really slow, probably the cold and wet. As things dried out and warmed up so did the HB activity. For a brief peroid we had as many as 4-5 babies on the feeder at once and we were filling it ever other day. Ric

It seems to me that we may have nests with parents that fledged a total of five young. This is my best observation to date. This was a slow and scarce summer for hummers here. There is hope for the flights home and back next summer.

I'll keep my feeders up for at least two weeks beyond the last sighting. I think we sometimes get migrating birds for a day or two.

We do leave our feeders up late also. Many people believe they will stay if they are fed because they see a few late in the season. What they are seeing are late migrants stopping for a little extra fuel for their trip. I have friends near Baltimore that said they have seen them up to near Thanksgiving. Ric

Our regular visitors are gone now, but I still have the feeder up for passers-thru!

I had visitors yesterday Sept. 25th. Had not seen any for three days. If they are stopping in for the food it is not for the major portion of their trip home. What they take from our feeders only lasts for an hour or so. All of their activities are for basic survival. They build up muscle and conditon for the big trip over a time period from fledging to departure. How they do this is anyones speculation. It certainly is not most likely by sucking in our sugar offerings. Sugar makes no plant or animal strong. In a good year it is likely that half will not be strong enough to make the round trip. The old and weak will die along the way. The young not fully conditioned will die off. That gives only the finest and fittest the ability to return. It is these birds whose genes continue supporting the flock. They bring us their eggs to hatch and fledge again next year. It is natural survival of the fittest.

I guess since man has messed up everything else from eggs to steak it's about time someone messes up the little hummer we all see and enjoy. I think blue, cross eyed and pink spotted fat sick hummers would be a delight to watch.

Doc, a good post.

No hummers for me lately, but I have been watching 2 Monarch chrysalis, I found a third when weeding one of the beds. Don't know if the 3rd will emerge as it is getting very dark, I had seen this happen last year too, hoping this is not a sign we are doing something to our monarch population.

I also keep an eye on my frogs as they are very sensitive to chemicals, which I stay away from in my yard, and if I do have to resort to any I use it very carefully and sparingly.

Lady, Isn't it late for Monarch's?

Stormy, any monarch cats or chrysalis I have found have been in September. In past years I have raised found cats and released them. I have not read much as to their timing, hopefully we will have more warm weather to get them to the south.

This picture was taken Sept 21 2007

This message was edited Sep 26, 2009 12:23 PM

Here is my gift to my friend in Erie............and for all.

Ladygardener.....................if you Dmail me with your real Email address I will give you this image without the garbage on the top left hand corner. You took a beautiful picture. I managed it for you. This site now gave me the credit for the picture which of course is incorrect. To bad all photographs have to be messed up with what is thought to be some illconceived protection. Anybody could do what I have just done. There is apparently no law or condition of common sense to prevent a site from putting that garbage on our pictures.

Thanks, Lady. Beautiful photos, Doc too. I have had lots of them this summer and there are still some around. It's been a great year here for the butterflies, just not any Hummers.

Doc you have D-mail Thank you.

I picked up my butterfly book and read that they only live 60 to 90 days, reproducing on their way south I guess.

Also did you notice they are a girl and a boy. When I released them the flew into a tree which was south. One stopped on the clematis for a while.

I must say Lady, that I've have never given 1 thought to what sex a butterfly is.

Not to be off (on? LOL ) topic, but are hummers still around in MD? I now have tons of flowers on my cardinal climber vine, they ought to love.

Hi Sally,

I still have either one or two females hanging around - I see them every day (including today), so I don't think they're transients yet. No males for weeks, though.

What usually happens in my yard is that when the Pineapple Sage bursts into full bloom (it hasn't yet), that means the hummers left the day before. ;-/

Diva, I'm glad to hear you say that. This is my first time trying the PS and I was wonderering if it wasn't going to bloom at all.

Yeah, it's pretty stubborn - at least in my zone. Rarely blooms until almost October, and then it's covered with flowers that are glorious and hummer-attracting tubular and red, but they've already hit the road... I still like it, though. The foliage smells wonderful and the flowers are worth the wait.

I've still got my feeders up... I know it's not the fuel that will get them home, but hey, we like to stop for a little fast food top-up when we travel, so why shouldn't I offer them the same sort of pickmeup? LOL

Doc, if you go to your home page (click the "my info" tab at the top of this page) and click "manage your preferences," you will find a link for "copyrights" on the menu at the right. There, you can choose to have the regular white copyright, a less distracting watermark, or no copyright at all. You can also turn off your copyright, post a particular image, then turn it back on again. (I do that from time to time, as when I'm posting an image that I edited for somebody else.)

My pineapple sage just started to bloom! So sad. Fortunately for the hummers, a nearby red salvia (volunteer) and coral honeysuckle have been going gangbusters for some time.

Maybe I need to try a different type of feeder. I've seen one like Bec's but not as pretty. I like the one that Onewish has been using too.

Hi all...
I'm a newcomer to all of this and I guess my wife and I have made every mistake in the book. We wanted some hummingbirds to visit us, so we got ONE simple feeder. Of course the first thing we did was mix the sugar water and put red dye in it. Hm-m-m, not off to a good start are we? We've got the feeder about 4' off the ground; at least that seems to have worked out for us.

Not knowing a thing about the little guys and gals, we think we started getting visits from 4-6 of them. Then 2 of them started being VERY territorial. We didn't have a clue how territorial they were! HA HA HA We've had the opportunity to watch them chase other, much larger birds away and they've given my wife and me a good hard look on more than one occasion.

They seem to really like the nearby salvia and zinnia that we have and have even seen them at the phlox. But the summer is gone and we haven't seen one in a couple of days now. Maybe next year we'll be able to get some pictures to show the group AND we definately have to find a couple more simple, but functional feeders -- we're not too fond of the real fancy feeders.

As for sex, we can't tell one from the other. We just enjoy them, but maybe next year we'll get better.

The simple least expensive feeders are best in my opinion. Don't sweat the red additive. Better to not use it by general opinion. Go easy on the extra feeders. If placed to close they become all in one territory. They duke it out with each other taking turns. One four or five opening feeder will easily service the needs of a dozen or more birds. They dominate but then fly away while the others wait their turns. The battle is natural and happens out there in nature around a single plant flower or flowers they like.

Anyone reading your post will have a smile recalling thier early efforts to get them feeding up close for lots of enjoyment.

Duncraft on line has a quality line of feeders for the hummers as well as all types of birds.

Welcome to the hummer watchers of the world. Your photography skills are about to need sharpening. LOL Many set up a tripod, for them to get use to seeing and use electronic triggers shooting at 500th.of a second and faster for various effects. A fairly high number f stop gives sharpness and a wider debth of field. If shooting at dusk the ISO may need to be 500 or higher. Experiment and find your best set up for your specific available light variations. Expect to shoot large numbers of shots to get a really good one.

Critter, don't feel bad - my pineapple sages (one "regular", and one "Golden Delicious" ) STILL haven't bloomed. The regular one has buds at the end of the stems now, but I bet it's going to be another few days before they bloom. The "Golden Delicious" is only starting to show little bits of bud, so who knows?

I did see a female hummer this morning, feeding at one of the agastaches, then it went up to rest on the branches of a poplar.

Lethdun, welcome to the FUN of feeding and watching these flying jewels. docgipe has given you excellent information. Definitely a better plan to place any extra feeders out of sight of the other ones - you stand a better chance of seeing more. But the fighting and territorial behavior of these tiny critters is such fun to watch!

My feeder has 3 ports, and I can count on one hand the times that I've seen more than one hummer feeding at a time. There have been a number of face-offs, and chases, but agreeing to feed at the same time? Not so much. LOL!

The male ruby-throats are aptly named - they have dark red throats - very distinctive. The females and young hummers don't have the dark throat.

They will come to most tubular flowers, no matter what the color - my local ones have really loved the "Black & Blue" Salvia this summer, but have checked out most everything in the yard - including daylilies, and even brightly colored t-shirts when I'm out in the yard. ^_^ Many times, I'll be out bending over, weeding or digging, and hear the humming of their wings as they pass overhead, or even hover around. Such fun. I always miss them when they're gone...

Another sign that autumn is beginning to arrive here in the Mid-Atlantic - I haven't seen or heard the catbirds in days.

So nice to see you posting, Lethdun. Please join in any of our conversations.

Thanks for the welcome to each of you. I sat here at 4:30 this morning and told my wife everything I could remember that I learned yesterday! We've knew we had so much to learn and, having browsed a few topics, it really looks like DG is the place for us to be.

We really had fun this summer watching the hummers and didn't realize how fortunate we were to have them in here at all. My wife missed it, but I got to see 2 of them at the feeder twice this summer. Well, really only once because the second time they tried it there was a fight!

Will the male and female feed at the same time? How about the children? Or do they each wait until noone else is around and then go to feed?

Also, they seem to like the same flowers as the bumble bees. Have we observed this correctly?

Again, thank you for the wonderful welcome!

Added: I just found hummingbirds.net! Another nice site.

This message was edited Oct 2, 2009 11:52 AM

Agressive as the hummers are it would not be I that tries to figure out to much. I think I have seen all members of a family at one time or another fight each other.

There are many small flowers that they feed on. To size their likes to any one even rough size would not be correct.

Thanks for all the helpful info docgipe :-)

I'm young enough (ha) to have been in an ornathology field class at Shippensbury University in the early sixties. Low and behold at the Ungodly hour of four thirty AM there did appear at our coffee meeting place non other than Roger Troy Peterson. He was buddies with our professor.

Two things I remember he said, "when you only hear a bird it is a catbird until proven otherwise" and " you can find all kinds of opinions in print....as the gospel" "never believe or pass on any single opinion that you have not confirmed yourself". Upon leaving us that day he gave each student a signed copy of his famous Field Guide to Eastern Birds. Not many books stay in print more than a few years. His Field Guide is the best bird book in print to this day. If present management of it's content continues Peterson's book will be very hard to better.

doc
I'm in awe The Roger Tory Peterson?!?! How fantastic.

Great story, doc! So cool to get to meet THE Roger Tory Peterson and to receive a signed copy of his field guide. Love his advice too.

You guys are going to turn me into a bird watcher yet!!!

Another time when we were in the Cornell's Sapsucker Woods it was grape vine that Roger was also in the area.

Aw, stormy, you gotta enjoy the birds if you're a gardener!!!