Month: August 2008

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Hummingbird Food Hummingbird Pictures

Flowering Plants of Vital Importance

Almost every part of the hummingbird’s life is shaped by their dependence on flowering plants. This includes their size, shape, their ability to hover in flight, their mating habits, and migration. The nectar that is found in flowers that has been pollinated by hummingbirds is very rich in sugars, especially sucrose, which is commonly found in sugar cane and sugar beets.The hummingbirds depend on these sources because of their high metabolic rates which are necessary for them to achieve hovering flight. The small body size of the hummingbird that helps them to achieve optimum flight performance, but it also results in a higher rate of heat loss. The hummingbird must take in an enormous about of calories to help ensure their ability to maintain a normal body temperature.

 
When it comes to selecting a food source, the color of a plant is far less important in determining a bird’s "favorite" nectar source. What is most important is the quantity and quality of the nectar which is available. Whenever choosing a flower, the hummingbird will select the flower with the highest nectar output and the richest concentration of sugars, regardless of the shape or color of the flower. Also more important than the color of the flower is how the nectar taste.
Categories
Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Proper Hummingbird Feeder Maintenance

Many people have hummingbird feeders in their yard, but quite often they aren’t always sure how to properly maintain them. This post will help inform you about how to properly maintain your feeders, and thus hopefully ensure that you will have an abundance of hummingbirds visiting your yard on a regular basis. 
 
It is important to remember that hummingbird sugar solution is liquid and therefore extremely susceptible to fermentation, mold, or harmful bacteria. These things can put the health and lives of the hummingbirds in danger. 
 
Hummingbird feeders should be cleaned every two to three days. The feeder should be washed in very hot water, to wish you may add some vinegar or even a tiny amount of Clorox. The vinegar will help remove mold, and the Clorox should only be used for extremely difficult cleaning jobs. Whatever cleaning solution you choose to use, please be sure and rinse the feeder out thoroughly when you are finished! Any places that are hard to reach can be cleaned with the use of a bottle brush or pipe cleaners.
 
In very hot weather, which is considered to be temperatures above 60 degrees F., feeders should be cleaned every two days, and then fresh sugar solution should be added. The reason for this is because in very hot temperatures the pathogens in the sugar solution can multiply very rapidly.
 
It is impossible to state a specific date by which hummingbird feeders should be up. When to put up your hummingbird feeders will depend on where in the country you live. In the south the arrival of the hummingbirds may be as early as January or February. If you live in the north, the arrival of the hummingbirds will probably take place in April or May. The timing of when you should hang up your feeders will also depend largely on which hummingbird species are common where you live.
 
Many people mistakenly believe that leaving hummingbird feeders up for too long a period of time will prevent the hummingbirds from migrating. This is not true! A hummingbird has an instinctive urge to migrate and this is not based on whether feeders are up or not. The hummingbirds are most likely responding to light level changes rather than to food level changes.  
 
In some parts of the country hummingbirds have become year-round residents. On the West Coast, in the Southwest, and in a few places in the Southeast, hummingbirds can be found in the winter. So, if you live where hummingbirds have become year-round residents, leaving your feeder up could be life-sustaining to these birds.
 
Having hummingbird feeders placed around your yard is one of the easiest ways to attract hummingbirds to your yard. It is important to maintain proper feeder maintenance to ensure the health and well being of these birds. Also, doing so will help to ensure that these birds will return there each and every hummingbird season.
Categories
Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Why Hummingbirds Aren’t Visiting Your Feeders

Many people who put up hummingbird feeders may still not be attracting the birds or maybe they were at one time attracting the birds only to have them stop visiting their feeders. This is a situation that can be very complex. The information which follows should offer some insight into this matter.
 
One explanation could be that you live in an area that is a poor hummingbird habitat. This simply means that you live in an area that has few flowers, trees, or shrubs that hummingbirds like and therefore few of the birds visit the area.
 
Another explanation is that you live in too good a habitat. If there are too many plants, flowers, or shrubs in your area which attract hummingbirds, then the birds may have no need to visit the feeders in the area. Simply put, the natural food supply is available with such abundance that alternate food sources aren’t necessary. 
 
There may be hummingbirds in the area but they may not be interested in your feeders. It is possible for individual hummingbirds to develop their own particular feeding patterns and be influenced by their prior experiences.
 
Another simple explanation why there are no hummingbirds at your feeder is because it is breeding season. The birds may have gone elsewhere to do their breeding.
 
The feeding solution in your feeder may have fermented or gone sour. Generally speaking, the feeder should be cleaned every two to three days. In very hot weather, which is considered to be temperatures above 60 degrees F., feeders should be cleaned every two days, and then fresh sugar solution should be added. If you leave your feeders empty for too long or if your feeding solution has gone bad and you don’t change it out with fresh solution, then the birds may not return because of this.
 
You also may not be looking when the hummingbirds arrive. If there are few hummingbirds in your area, it would be quite easy for you to miss seeing them because they spend very little amounts of their time feeding.
 
Hummingbird feeders are a very common way to try and attract these birds. In order to draw hummingbirds to your feeders, you will want to hang the feeders near nectar-rich flowers, shrubs, and trees that the hummingbirds are instinctively drawn towards. Then you will have the best of all possible worlds, because the birds can choose between your hummingbird feeders or the flowers, trees, and shrubs that attract them.

The Courtship of Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds court visually. The male may raise his feathers edging the gorget and shake his head from side to side, all the while, making shrill noises. He also does dive displays, accompanied by various sounds made vocally or by the wing feathers. Alternatively, the male may perform a shuttle dance involving flying back and forth very quickly in arc shapes only about ten inches wide and sometimes right in front of the face of the female.
 
During courtship and aggressive encounters, the male Broad-billed Hummingbird will perform what is known as a pendulum display, starting by hovering about a foot from the female and then flying in repeated arcs, like a pendulum. This display will be followed by a high-pitched zinging sound. Other than this brief description, little additional information is believed to be known about this species maneuvers during courtship. This may be because this bird chooses not to perform such displays whenever humans are present or they choose secluded areas in which to perform their courtship displays.
 
When the nest is partially built, the male Anna’s Hummingbird performs his courtship display. First, he hovers before the female, then rises high, sometimes pausing to sing a thin, squeaky warble of a song before again diving toward her, tracing a deep arc and making a loud, explosive noise at the bottom of the dive.
 
In some species, the males all group together and sing to attract nearby females into their territory. The males and females have separate territories, the females for nesting purposes and the males usually to protect a source of food.
Categories
Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Sugar Water as Hummingbird Food

Probably the easiest way to attract hummingbirds to your yard is by filling your bird feeder with a sugar water hummingbird food.  This is a simple and nice gesture towards these extremely agile and pretty little creatures that come into your yard or garden.

Hummingbirds are amazing creatures that expend an astounding amount of energy every day. Hummingbirds are extremely small birds, typically weighing between 3 and 7 grams, but they require an abundance of energy in order to live. This is because their activity level is extremely high, and their biological clock runs incredibly fast. The heartbeat rate of a flying hummingbird may reach up to more than 1200 beats per minute!

It is due to their astonishing level of activity and also their heartbeat rate that hummingbirds must feed so very frequently, flying from flower to flower gathering nectar, which is the main source of their energy. Nectar contains, in addition to water, sucrose, glucose and fructose, all of which are different forms of sugar. So a sugar water hummingbird food is as close to their natural diet as you can get.

Hummingbirds are voracious eaters, and they have to eat between 5 and 14 times every hour. The stomach capacity of a hummingbird is quite small, and therefore it cannot hold too much food at once. That is why they must feed very frequently so as not to starve. At any given moment during the period of activity, they are only a few hours away from death by starvation! The need to be frequently acquiring food is a major survival issue for them.  This is especially true in today’s society when concrete jungles are extending and wiping out forests, trees and flowers.

A tipical human being normally eats about 2% to 4% of their own weight every day. The hummingbird must eat,under normal circumstances, more than 500% of its own body weight everyday just in order to survive! Providing a high-energy sugar water hummingbird food in your bird feeder is one of the best gestures of kindness that you can make towards these exquisite creatures of the air.