Attracting Hummingbirds to Your Garden

Maybe it’s the way they hover in mid-air, extracting nectar from a bright fuschia foxglove. It could be the joy of catching a glimpse of the rather illusive creature. Or maybe it’s simply that their presence signifies the beginning of summer warmth. Whatever the reason, hummingbirds are a welcome addition to a garden and they’re relatively easy to attract.

Knowing a bit about hummingbirds, and specifically the ruby-throated hummingbird which most commonly visits Wilton, can help with inviting the winged beauties to your garden.

The ruby-throated hummingbird starts its life inside an egg that is only a half an inch in diameter. Generally, a nest contains two eggs inside its tiny walls. The female constructs the nest out of plant down, such as dandelion, and spider silk, which she actually collects from webs. She then covers her creation with lichens or moss. Although difficult to spot because of its slight size, nests are built in a variety of spaces such as on top of tree branches and manmade landscape structures.

The female of this species certainly has her work cut out for her, since it is she alone that searches for tiny insects to bring back to the babies. Surprisingly, the nectar obtained from flowers and hummingbird feeders aren’t really food for the bird at all; the sweet water is used by the bird as an energy source, especially during migration, when some fly all the way down across the Gulf of Mexico.

Hummingbirds have a heart rate that pings between 250 beats per minute at rest and 1200 beats per minute while feeding. These amazing birds beat their wings at least 50 times per second. This slow motion video on You Tube is rather impressive.

Creating a garden that looks especially enticing to hummingbirds is easy. Hummingbirds are attracted to colors such as reds and oranges, and they especially like tubular flowers. Morning glories and even zinnias are favorites of the bird.

According to the website www.rubythroat.org, the trumpet creeper, which is often considered a weed, is guaranteed to attract hummingbirds.

The same hummingbirds usually go back to the same feeding area and nectar is a prized possession in the ruby throated’s world.  The migration map on Hummingbirds.net is a great tool to track where the earliest sightings are every year.

Hummingbird feeders are a great addition to the hummingbird attracting repertoire, but they require daily maintenance:

• Only bottled or previously boiled water should be used in feeders.
• It is not necessary to purchase “hummingbird nectar” since a 1:4 sugar to water ratio can easily be made at home.
• Never use or make colored sugar water. The feeder is what needs to be a bright red and yellow, not the nectar.
• Especially in the heat and humidity, feeders must be scrubbed out with a bottle brush every day to remove mildew, which can be deadly to hummingbirds. I have two feeders so that I always have one clean and can keep in constant daily rotation.
• Ants can pose a nuisance, but my local catbird loves to pick them off of the top of the feeder.

On this chilly Saturday in May, as I sit on my patio, laptop clicking away while writing this column, I notice I haven’t seen the female hummingbird at my feeder all day. And quite literally, the second I ended that sentence she arrived, took a healthy drink and buzzed my hummingbird loving head.