How to Attract Hummingbirds to Your Garden
Hummingbirds are found all over the Americas including the Caribbean. Famous for their ability to hover and their skill at backward flying, hummingbirds can hover by flapping their wings up to 85 times a second.
The Bee Hummingbird is the tiniest bird in the world at only two inches long and weighing around 2 grams. The largest hummingbird is the Giant Hummingbird at 24 grams and approximately 8 inches long. Hummingbirds have the fastest metabolism of any birds and to maintain this they have to eat more than their own weight in food daily. In order to do this they have to visit five hundred or more flowers a day to gather the nectar. They have extended beaks and tongues to reach right into the blooms. They can reduce their metabolisms when still, in contrast to nearly all other animals with a high metabolisms. This increases their natural life, which may be up to 17 years.
Making A Hummingbird Friendly Garden
To draw hummingbirds to your garden you could plant brightly colored flowers and bushes. The sense of smell of Hummingbirds is very poor but they are attracted to bright colours. Hanging a hummingbird feeder in your backyard or on your patio will catch the attention of these beautiful birds. Some annuals to plant include petunia, salvia, beard tongue, jacobinia, firespike and impatiens. Perennial plants include bee balm, costa, yucca, canna, lupine, cardinal flower and foxglove. For trees and shrubs pick azalea, buddleia, cape honeysuckle, mimosa, weigela, flame acanthus, lantana, red buckeye and tree tobacco.
Don’t use any insecticides in your garden as you will eradicate bugs and insects that hummingbirds eat. They also leave residues on the blooms which the hummingbirds could ingest. Also provide a lot of roosting places as they spend approximately 80% of the time resting on twigs, clothes lines etc. Make available plants that will supply nesting materials to be a focus for female hummingbirds. Hummingbirds have a preference for soft nesting material from trees like willow and eucalyptus and from lichens and mosses.
Hanging vibrantly colored, specially made hummingbird feeders in your garden will be a focus for the hummingbirds. A good scheme is to fasten red streamers that blow all around the feeder. It’s also helpful to put out feeders at different heights as hummingbird species all have different preferences. Species that prefer plants that are low growing will go to a feeder positioned lower while species that feed on taller shrubs and plants will prefer to visit a feeder placed higher. Hummingbirds are also very territorial and a single hummingbird may well defend a single feeder and stop others from using it. Space no less than 3 feeders at assorted heights around your garden.
Hummingbirds love to bathe in the mist on plants so you might position a mister close to some broadleaved shrubbery to give them a bathing place.
Making Hummingbird Nectar
A sweet nectar can be made by mixing together a measure of sugar with four cups of water that has been boiled. Cool then keep in the refrigerator. Nectar that is unused can be kept safely for about seven days. Carefully wash hummingbird feeders every week by rinsing with a mixture of one cup of vinegar to four cups of water then rinsing with plain water. Fill with the sugar solution and suspend out of the sun. Don’t add food coloring or sweeteners. Also don’t use honey as it may ferment and produce a fungus that is harmful. Swap the nectar solution in your feeder at least every three days or oftener in hotter weather.
Conclusion
It is easy to make a garden that will appeal to these attractive birds. Give them the food they like and a secure setting and hummingbirds will pay a visit your garden regularly.
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