By Linda Aldrich for WINTU AUDUBON SOCIETY
If you want a dawn-to-dark aerial show in your yard, you can feed hummingbirds. The three feeders and clumps of “hummingbird flowers” that my husband Phil and I have provided for the four years that we’ve lived in Shasta County have given us hours of watching pleasure as well as entertaining our guests and enlivening social events.
All you need is a feeder, sugar solution and perhaps some patience initially until your offering registers on the local hummers’ foraging route—then be prepared! During spring, late summer and fall we host dozens of jewel-like little birds and must fill three quart-sized containers every day. Smaller numbers of hummers other times of year still keep us filling feeders but at less frequent intervals.
FEEDERS:
The two commonest designs are “flying saucer” and “rocket ship”.
There are also many others ranging from recycled pop bottles to blown-glass designer works of art.
All the hummingbirds care about according to feeder model trials in Bird Watcher’s Digest (May/June 2002) are perch-to-port distance and feeding port design. Humans are also interested in ease of filling, ease of cleaning, ease of hanging, durability, stability and visual appeal to themselves and other people. Feeders of all types and sizes may be viewed and ordered over the Internet. For example, one website out of many, birdwatchers.com, had a couple of dozen feeders, cleaning utensils and bee and ant guards for sale. Their prices for feeders ranged from $3.99 to $34.99 plus shipping. Feeders are also available at most local home and garden stores and plant nurseries.
FOOD:
The most highly recommended beverage is a simple sugar solution of one part sugar to four parts water.
We stir to dissolve the sugar and microwave the solution to the boiling point to knock back initial microbial contamination. We thoroughly clean our feeders using bottle brushes and hydrogen peroxide followed by thorough rinsing several times a week.
The cleanup is very important to prevent our little “customers” from becoming ill or contracting beak diseases.
WARNING: Red dyes, honey or other sweeteners are NOT RECOMMENDED and may be harmful if used. NEVER use saccharine, NutraSweet or other artificial sweeteners—these little guys NEED all the calories they can get. They’ll balance their diet themselves by eating tiny insects and drinking flower nectar.
ATTRACTING THE BIRDS:
Be patient initially. If no one in your neighborhood had been feeding hummingbirds, it may take days to weeks for your feeder to be discovered. Before the bird traffic builds up, be vigilant and watch for any cloudiness in the sugar solution. If that occurs, discard the contaminated solution, clean the feeder and refill with fresh solution. A trick reported in Bird Watcher’s Digest (May/June 2002) is to surround your feeder with red (hummingbirds’ favorite color) bunched handkerchiefs to mimic large flowers and present a larger target for passing hummers.
Another attractant is hummingbird friendly flowers. Red, orange or yellow tubular blossoms get their attention. We have had good results with a native red Penstemon as well as Lantana, Trumpet Vine and Honeysuckle.
For added amusement, you can provide a spray of water from time to time and watch “your” hummingbirds fly through for a bath followed by a feather preening period.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
If you would like to learn more about all kinds of birds, visit our website (wintuaudubon.org) or join us on the second Saturday of each month for a bird walk-check the Record Searchlight for time and place.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT HUMMINGBIRDS
Frequently Asked Question (FAQ): What kinds of hummingbirds will come to my feeder?
Answer (A): The three most common species of hummingbirds in Shasta County are Anna’s, Black-chinned and Rufous. Less common but a definite possibility during spring migration is the Calliope Hummingbird.
Anna’s Hummingbirds are the largest at 4”. The head of the male bird gleams bright reddish-pink in favorable lighting conditions while the female has a necklace of the same color at her throat. Both have green backs, wings and tails. They live here year around.
Black-chinned and Rufous Hummingbirds are mid-sized at 3 ¾”. Rufous (Latin for “red”) males are a bright russet on back, sides and tail and have a brilliant iridescent orange-red color at the throat. Females are green above with russet sides and central part of tail feathers. Rufous Hummingbirds come through our area during spring and late summer migrations.
Although the Black-chinned Hummingbird is as long as the Rufous, it is noticeably slimmer and the head appears to be smaller. Male Black-chins have a totally black head that does not change color in any lighting conditions. Occasionally, a purple iridescent patch can be seen at the throat. Females are greenish-gray above and plain whitish below and are mainly identified by size and shape. Black-chinned Hummingbirds can be seen here in spring, summer and fall, but leave for the winter.
Calliope Hummingbirds are the tiniest hummingbird in the United States at 3 ¼”. They appear stout for their length and the greenish female is identified mainly by size and shape. The male sports streaks of purple-red at his throat and onto his upper chest. Calliope Hummingbirds pass through this area on the way to their nesting areas in the Sierra Nevada.
FAQ: Why does the head sometimes look black and sometimes look red on the same bird?
A: Because the red doesn’t come from a pigment – it is structural color similar to light reflected from a prism or the facets of a diamond. Kenn Kaufman in “Lives of North American Birds” explains that many of the iridescent colors are created more by the structure of the feather. A brown or gray pigment is overlaid by transparent cells that reflect only certain colors of light. When there is just the right angle between feather, light source and observer a brilliant color becomes visible. The green feathers on the backs of many hummingbirds work the same way, but are structured to reflect the color in more directions, so the green can usually be seen.
FAQ: Where do “our” hummingbirds go during the winter?
A: It depends upon the species. Anna’s Hummingbirds are resident, meaning that they live here year around. Black-chinned and Calliope Hummingbirds winter in Mexico as do some of the Rufous Hummingbirds. Other Rufous individuals winter in southern California.
FAQ: Am I helping hummingbirds or harming them by providing a non-natural food source?
A: Probably helping sometimes and definitely helping at other times. A study in Paul Kerlinger’s “How Birds Migrate” showed that Rufous Hummingbirds in the California Sierra Nevada weighed 3.4 grams when they arrived at a feeder site in late summer and in 4 to 20 days had increased their weight to 4 grams on average. (A gram is 1/28th of an ounce and 4 grams is more than the weight of a penny but less than a nickel.) This weight gain may be critical in the success of their long migration to Mexico.
Small birds need enormous amounts of energy just to fly, forage, maintain their body temperature and make it through the night even when they are not “traveling” or breeding. In an article by Richard Coniff (Smithsonian Magazine, September, 2000), it says that the typical hummingbird needs 7 to 12 calories a day. That translates to over 200,000 calories a day for a 180- pound person or about 170 pounds of hamburger! Hummingbirds have the highest rate of metabolism of any animal – roughly 100 times that of an elephant. A warm-blooded animal can’t be any smaller or it wouldn’t be able to eat fast enough to maintain its body temperature of 104 degrees (“The Birder’s Handbook”).
The female hummingbird does all of the nest-building, incubation and feeding of the young (as well as expending the energy to form the eggs) and any extra calories that she can get from sugar-water feeders without a lot of foraging can only help her in her prodigious task. As to the lack of nutrients in sugar-water, the hummingbirds will balance their diets by eating small insects (up to 60% of their diet in breeding season) and visiting flowers the nectar of which in some species is “fortified” with amino acids and other nutrients. In winter, they also drink tree sap and liquid from fruit. You can further help “your” hummingbirds by decreasing your use of insecticides and by growing hummingbird-friendly flowers such as hibiscus, petunia, mimosa, trumpet vine, lupine, bee balm, columbine, gladiola and fuchsia according to Jan Mahnken in “The Backyard Bird-Lover’s Guide”.
FAQ: What good are hummingbirds?
A: They are extremely important as the pollinators of “hummingbird flowers”. In most cases, a plant that produces tubular red or orange flowers and is well endowed with nectar has evolved to attract hummingbirds. The plant depends upon hummingbirds to carry pollen from one plant to another for the production of seed and enrichment of the plant’s gene pool. Observations that I made for a class project when I was going to the University of North Carolina showed that bees and other insects did not visit a species of morning glory with long narrow-tubed reddish-orange flowers, but hummingbirds were regularly seen nectaring in one clump and heading for another. Excluding the hummingbirds virtually eliminated seed set.
Hummingbirds also eat quantities of small insects, especially in the breeding season —they probably help hold the aphids down in our vegetable garden!
From a human point of view, these little birds are beautiful and fascinating to watch as they perform seemingly impossible aeronautical feats, apparently with ease!
FAQ: Can I encourage hummingbirds to nest in my yard by putting up bird houses?
A: Surprisingly, the answer is “yes”. Don’t think little square box with a hole in it, though. Dan and Diane True, by dint of much study and trial and error (as reported in the May/June 2002 issue of “Bird Watcher’s Digest”), came up with a house that several species of hummingbirds (including the locally-nesting Anna’s and Black-chinned) will use. It looks more like an artificial tree limb crotch than a bird house. To learn the whole story or order a Hummingbird House kit you can visit the website hummingbird-house.com on the Internet.
FAQ: How can hummingbirds do all the maneuvers they do while flying?
A: Hummingbirds can indeed fly backwards, sideways and up or down as well as dart off suddenly at speeds up to 60 miles per hour! They are unique among birds by being able to truly hover – that is, remain in one place in still air for as long as they want to. As reported in “The Birder’s Handbook” by Paul Ehrlich, et al., a hovering hummer moves its wings in a figure eight pattern with the “eight” lying on its side. These little birds have an extremely mobile shoulder joint that permits them to twist their wings in such a way (upside down on the backstroke) as to generate lift on both forward and back strokes. In each stroke, the bird is able to make use of some of the energy of the previous stroke. The direction of thrust changes between forward and back strokes, canceling out so that the bird’s body remains stationary in the air.
FAQ: If they need so much energy input, how do hummingbirds live through the night?
A: Because hummingbirds use energy so rapidly, they could indeed run into problems during the night when they are not feeding. In “The Birder’s Handbook”, it says that at their active metabolic rate, hummers are only a few hours from starving to death. However, when resting, they use energy at a rate eight times less than when they are hovering. If they need to, they can become torpid, which is a condition similar to an overnight hibernation. When torpid, they let their body temperature drop as much as 50 degrees lower than their normal temperature of 104 degrees, conserving energy that would otherwise be expended maintaining body temperature. They don’t become torpid every night, but it is an emergency measure that they can use during cold weather or to survive periods of food shortage. So, if you find an “out-of-it” hummingbird at the end of a cold night, make sure that it is out of reach of predators, leave it alone and see whether it doesn’t revive and fly off (perhaps to your feeder) as the temperature rises. [If you find an injured hummingbird, you can take it to Shasta Wildlife Rescue in Anderson River Park (365-WILD).]
FAQ: Why do hummingbirds spend so much time chasing each other around?
A: That has to do with their “revved up” lifestyle. According to Richard Conniff in Smithsonian Magazine (September 2000), a hummingbird “is slave to its raging metabolism.” A hummingbird’s heart beats more that 1,200 times a minute in flight and its tiny wings hum at more than 2,000 revolutions per minute. In the wild, it must find up to 1,000 flowers a day to drink almost twice its weight in nectar. A study reported in “The Birder’s Handbook” found that a Rufous Hummingbird establishes a territory large enough to maximize its daily weight gain for migration. Each bird defended its territory by chasing out not only other hummers, but also butterflies and bees that might drink “its” nectar. This same instinct operates in your yard, but fortunately a sugar-water feeder is such a rich source (and each bird must take a six-minute digestion break after filling up) that pretty much all of them get to eat. Feeders with widely enough separated ports will help. In the meantime, you will see spectacular spread-tailed displays and daredevil feats of flying as “your” hummingbirds do what comes naturally.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
If you would like to learn more about all kinds of birds, visit our website (wintuaudubon.org) or join us on the second Saturday of each month for a bird walk – check the Record Searchlight for time and place.