It’s almost hummingbird season! These amazing creatures spend their winter in Central America and migrate back into the United States in April. Then there are those lucky bastards in California and southern Florida that get to enjoy them year round.
Well not me. Not where I live. Mine don’t show up until mid-April and it’s an agonizing wait. I’m constantly checking the migration maps (look below for links) to estimate when I should put out my feeders, and they always show up LONG past when I guess they will.
Then begins a twice-a-week routine that sucks even more hours from my already meager free time. Preparing the sugar water requires about an hour to boil and cool. Then all six feeders are emptied of the old syrup and thoroughly cleaned before being refilled with fresh feed. Thankfully, the transferring of the sugar water from the pot to the feeder helps cool it even more. Then, I carefully traverse my deck, climbing one, sometimes two sets of stairs to hang the feeders without spilling the sticky substance all over me or the patio.
And I want more feeders! I can’t get enough of these little flying assholes! Oh don’t scowl at me, they’re jerks. My deck is a constant battleground in the summer with aggressive males trying to claim a feeder as their own. Or dive bombing the females to try to impress them. Or trying to sneak in a few sips inbetween a clump of honeybees that just need another hit before returning back to the hive with the real stuff. But the tiny birds are just so fascinating, I can’t bear it when I look out the window and don’t immediately spot one.
I need more feeders, but I also need more plants. A hummingbird will fly miles to a preferred source of nectar even when there are perfectly good feeders merely two feet away. Natural is best. But the flowers are really mostly an attractant and the convenience of the feeders are what keep them hanging around. So the one foxglove plant and the one small lilac bush are just not enough. The problem here lies with my lack of proper horticulture skills. I used to be good! Hell, I kept 5 orchid plants alive for years once. And Chester! He’s a rockstar! But when it comes to outdoor plants, I often fail miserably. But I feel that I could do more to attract more hummingbirds, so I may be trying my luck with a few more flowering plants.
And it’s a good thing that sugar water or nectar isn’t the only thing that hummingbirds need. In fact, a captive hummingbird will die a horrible death if all they are fed is sugar water. Thankfully, it’s illegal to keep a hummingbird as a pet so don’t even think about it! But hummingbird rehabbers always keep a “culture” of fruit flies at the ready so the birds have a nearby source of protein. So that’s my next hummingbird project: Fruit Flies! (my husband will HATE me for even attempting this) There is a commercial “fruit fly feeder” available (the flies are the feed, not the fed) but it rarely works according to the reviews. It’s a case of DIY is best, so I plan to DIY the best fruit fly factory I can.
From what I’ve learned, you simply put a banana or two in a container with small holes punched in the lid and set it outside. The flies go in and get all frisky and freaky with how awesome this love shack is with a constant source of rotting fruit. Fruit fly fornication occurs and fresh flies are fabricated to fill the firkin. You simply open the container for an hour or so once a day to allow a cloud of yummy protein to waft out and be nabbed by the hungry birds. They’ll also sit on the edge of the container to pick them right off the fruit. Or you could put half inch diameter holes in the side of your fruit fly container and treat it like another feeder.
Then, just as autumn begins, the feathered fliers fuck right on off and I am finished filling feeders for the foreseeable future. Well, until Spring.
- Hummingbird Central Migration Map 2022
- Hummingbird-Guide Migration Map 2022
- Who is Chester?
- fir·kin | \ ˈfər-kən (noun) – a small wooden vessel or cask
- Sugar water recipe:
- 1 part white table sugar
- 4 parts water.
- Mix in a pot and bring to a boil. Allow to cool and use to fill a clean feeder.
- Do not add food coloring
- Do not use brown sugar, honey, syrup or any other type of sweetener. JUST SUGAR,