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Don’t know about HUMMINGBIRDS?

READ THIS!

Have you ever witnessed the tiny wings of an exquisite hummingbird in flight? Or marveled at its incredible acrobatic ability to fly backward or forward, to hover, or to ascend vertically at will?Consider for a moment that hummingbirds’ wings can rotate 180 degrees, either up, down, forward, or back. And, that their Lilliputian wings beat about 80 times per second during regular flight. Miraculously, this speed increases to a mere 200 times per second when the male hummingbird performs his display dive.

When resting, hummingbirds take 250 breaths per minute! If all of this doesn’t boggle your mind, imagine some of these miniature winged creatures, the Ruby-throated hummingbird in particular, flying 500 miles nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico to overwinter. Did I mention that Ruby-throats weigh in at about three grams, and that their eggs are about the size of a large pinto bean? Is it any wonder that these unique garden acrobats have captivated the attention of both hummingbird gardeners and “watchers” for centuries?According to statistics, nearly all hummingbirds that nest in North America are found only in the west. The only exception, the Ruby-throat, lives in the eastern half of the continent.

However, a few others have sometimes been sighted along the east coast. What do these resplendent little creatures dine on? How can you best attract them to your backyard garden?Grow a Hummingbird perfect

The hummingbird habitat is a simple one, and even the smallest garden can provide the food, water, perches, shelter and nesting sites that hummingbirds need. With Dale Gelfand's advice and easy-to-follow instructions you'll soon lure these beautiful birds into your backyard -- and keep them coming back year after year.

Like butterflies, hummingbirds receive most of their energy requirements from the sweet nectar found in the blossoms of flowers. They also ingest small spiders or soft insects they spy on the leaves of plants, providing them with protein. Another source of nectar often found by hummingbirds is in feeders containing a simple sugar water mixture. A word of caution is in order if you use feeders as a nectar supplement during those times when your garden may not be blooming profusely. Nectar feeders need to be cleaned at least every other day during the hot summer months.

Otherwise, the sugar will ferment and could cause deadly salmonella poisoning to hummingbirds.Would you believe that a single hummer needs the nectar of approximately 1,000 blossoms each and every day to sustain life?

The hummingbird gardener will be delighted to know there are over 150 varieties of flowering plants in North America that attract hummingbirds. It is essential to keep in mind that hummers prefer tubular flowers that allow their long, needle-like bills to fit inside these tubes. Thus, their tongues can easily lap up the sweet nectar found deep inside the flower tubes.If you are creating your hummingbird garden from scratch, you should consider planting a mix of annuals and perennials the first year. You can then add appropriate shrubs, vines, or trees in subsequent years.

Hummingbirds are very adept at sipping nectar from any or all these plant groups. Since perennials take several years to mature, plant an abundant variety of your favorite annuals as fillers the first year. With such a large assortment to choose from, you won’t have a problem choosing those plants that will thrive the best in your particular zone.An important consideration when designing your hummingbird garden is its shape. Curved, narrow flower beds are best, because hummers can access the blooms from all sides of the plants. Don’t crowd your garden with large trees or shrubs, but do arrange to have several clusters of each in different areas.

Hummingbirds need room to accommodate their wings as they whir about the blossoms. Select a variety of levels of flowers, trees, or shrubs, from low to medium to tall in height. Male hummers like to have tall trees to perch on, as they use them to watch for predators while the females are feeding.Hummingbirds don’t depend upon scent to locate nectar, but are attracted the most often to brightly colored flowers, especially red. This is why hummingbird feeders are primarily red. It has been reported by some bird watchers that they have seen hummers attracted to clotheslines with red garments hanging from them!As with butterfly gardening, DON’T use pesticides on your plants! They can be deadly to hummingbirds if sprayed directly onto your flowers. Instead, select organic pest control substances to help control unwanted garden pests.

There are many of these products available at your favorite garden store to choose from., . A variety of annuals, perennials, and/or bulbs are listed below that are high in nectar, and also have tubular shaped blossoms hummingbirds prefer. You are sure to find some of your favorites among these. Remember too, that these nectar blossoms will also draw many a brightly colored butterfly to your garden as well. What could be a better mix than both “flying flowers” and miniature “shimmering acrobats” in your backyard Garden of Eden?

Favorite Hummingbird Flowers Include: Beard Tongue (Penstemon); Bee Balm (Monarda); Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae); Browallia; Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa); California Fuchsia (Zauschneria); Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis); Columbia Lily (Lilium columbianum); Columbine (Aquilegia); Coral Bells (Heuchera); Delphinium; Foxglove (Digitalis); Geranium (Pelargonium); Gladiolus; Hollyhock (Alcea rosea); Hosta; Impatiens; Iris; Lilac; Lion’s Tail (Leonotis leonurus); Lobelia laxiflora; Lupine (Lupinus); Ohio Buckeye; Phlox; Red-hot-poker (Kniphofia uvaria); Salvia (Sage); Spider Flower (Cleome hasslerana); Trumpet Honeysuckle; Zinnia.Happy planning and planting! Get your camera ready for a deluge of hummers AND butterflies to photograph. Why not stop in at the Hummingbird Resources and Links Web site, and send a free hummer postcard to one of your favorite people? (Copyright 1998 by Naomi Mathews) -- Originally published on the Internet at Suite 101 in the "Gardening" area.

WHAT do you think of that…..no reason not to go ahead and start your hummingbird garden…just contact the lady above---she knows it all……..your 80% of the way there with all your fast growing hydroponic flowers and hydroponic plants….

I can tell you all about feeding them if you like…………….

Just ask the………..GUIDE..

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You want to know how to feed them?

. Obtaining the food needed to live from day to day is a fundamental part of life for birds. Imagine small hummingbirds discovering a large amount of food in one place, such as a feeder. For them a feeder is supernatural.

Within a very short time at a feeder, a small, hungry hummingbird can solve its immediate requirements for food. The very size of hummingbirds makes their survival an even bigger adventure. Hummingbirds must eat more than their weight in food each day, and they fulfill this need by eating often. Because their survival depends critically on eating frequently more than any other animal - they continually face the danger of starving.

Hummingbird MealsHow much and how often do hummingbirds eat? When we studied hummingbirds in the laboratory, we found that they, like humans, eat meals. A meal is a relatively quick and large intake of food, which is followed by time when no feeding occurs while the energy that has been consumed is used. In the lab, hummingbird meals are easy to observe because the birds fly from feeders back to a perch, and they do not come back to a feeder until they are ready for their next meal.

An X-ray of a Magnificent Hummingbird shows what happens to a meal once it is eaten. Food initially passes to an elastic sac in the neck called a crop, which serves the same storage and supply functions as a stomach. Small amounts of food empty from the crop and pass to the Intestine, where sugar is assimilated into the blood.

Measurements of excreted fluids show hummingbirds digest all the sugar from sugar-water meals. How often hummingbirds eat meals, and the amount they eat in a day, depends on the energy content of food. Hummingbirds feed on a variety of flower nectars with caloric values that may vary from 10 to 82 calories per meal (1/100 fluid ounces).

We found that when using a relative rich sugar solution, a three gram male Ruby-throated Hummingbird ate five meals an hour. For each meal he consumed a little less than 1/100 of a fluid ounce.

When we diluted the food by one-half, the Ruby-throat continued to eat the same volume for each meal, but he ate 14 meals an hour, or one meal every four or five minutes. The crop emptied more rapidly when the energy (sugar) content of its food was lower. Each meal weighed about one-quarter gram, so with 14 meals an hour, the three-gram bird ate 3.6 grams, or more than his weight in one hour! Over a 12-hour daylight feeding period, this hummingbird ate 43 grams of sugar water, or 14 times his weight in food. Even with the richer food, he ate 5.4 times his weight in a day.

The Impression from this frantic eating schedule seems to confirm that a hummingbird might very quickly starve to death if it does not eat in a short time. How, then, do these birds manage to survive overnight without eating?

To find out, we measured the amount of energy they used compared to the energy they ate. We measured energy they used while they perched and while they hovered, and we found a three-gram hummingbird used 15 times more energy in a minute to hover than to perch. When we added up the energy a hummingbird used after it ate a meal, we found it went back to eat again before it had utilized all the energy it had eaten. Some energy from each meal was saved and stored as fat.

Energy storage keeps a hummingbird from starving, but not for long. The energy stored by the end of a day usually is just sufficient to survive overnight.

What happens if a hummingbird cannot feed enough, or if it is cold and more energy must be used to keep warm overnight? Fortunately, hummingbirds, like hibernating mammals, can lower their body temperature overnight to conserve energy.

However, we found that hummingbirds do not lower their body temperature unless there is a danger they actually may starve. Even with their abilities to save some energy and to conserve energy in an extreme crisis, the impression is that small hummingbirds face big problems because they must eat often.

One way to help solve the problem is to eat energy-rich food; a hummingbird can store more energy from each meal, so their survival problems are reduced by feeding on rich foods. Hummingbirds spend most of their feeding time visiting flowers to eat nectar. Is it a rich food?

NectarTo the ancient Greeks, nectar was the drink of the gods, thus you might think nectar is pretty special. Actually flower nectar is a simple fluid composed mainly of water and sugar. Anyone who has sucked a honeysuckle or petunia blossom can testify to nectar's sweetness.

Analysis of the nectar from 124 plant species showed that it is composed of a combination of sucrose (table sugar), glucose and fructose. None of the nectars contained only glucose or only fructose. When we gave hummingbirds a choice between feeders containing sucrose and those with only glucose or only fructose, they preferred the sucrose.

Nectar also contains very small amounts of protein, and sodium and potassium salts. However, hummingbirds get most of their protein by eating small insects for a short time each day.

We were interested to know the sugar concentration, or the amount of sugar dissolved in a volume of water contained in lower nectar. This information would show how natural foods influence hummingbird feeding, and what sugar concentration to mix so hummingbird feeders provide the same food values that hummingbirds get from flower nectar.

We found that sugar concentrations differ widely among plant species, so no single sugar-water concentration is representative of all flower nectars that hummingbirds eat. The lowest sugar concentration we found was 10 calories in flowers of Iris missouriensis in the mountains of southeastern Arizona, while the highest, 82 calories, was for a Salvia in the Sonoran Desert in the same region.

The mean average sugar concentration for 65 plant species was 32 calories; the highest concentration was more than twice that, while the lowest was more than three times less than the average. This means hummingbirds will eat more or less frequently depending on the sugar concentration of nectar in the flowers they visit.

Sugar SolutionsConsidering such large differences In nectar sugar concentrations in flowers, it is possible to mix different solutions of sugar and water to achieve different goals, while still providing food similar to what the birds obtain from plants. Backyard birders have two major goals: to provide food to attract hummingbirds so they continue to visit, and to maintain feeding frequencies so it is easier to watch and enjoy the birds' behavior.

A hummingbird Is more likely to stay at a feeder when it first arrives if the feeder contains a relatively rich sugar solution. A 60 calorie solution can be mixed for this purpose with equal volumes of sugar and water (1:1 ratio). This high concentration is important to replenish energy reserves during migration, and to fuel the territorial exploits of males and nesting activities of females.

Once hummingbirds have been attracted with a rich sugar solution for two or three weeks, a lower concentration will increase their feeding activity and still provide sufficient energy. To promote high rates of feeding activity, mix one part sugar with four parts water (1:4 ratio). This 10-calorie solution is similar to lower sugar concentrations in nectar produced by some plants.

It will seem like there are many more hummingbirds visiting your feeders because each bird will feed 10 to 12 times an hour in comparison to two or three times an hour with richer food. If you wish to make the change from high to low sugar concentrations more gradual, the "average" 35-calorie concentration can be mixed with one part sugar and two parts water (1:2 ratio).

It Is not necessary to always provide the same concentration as the average found In flowers. Like a feeder for seed-eating birds, a hummingbird feeder is efficient because a bird can find and eat a meal very quickly. Although a higher caloric food in a feeder is more efficient for the birds, it decreases their feeding activity. It helps if neighbors coordinate changes in sugar-water concentrations because hummingbirds always prefer a higher sugar-water concentration. By studying the feeding behavior and physiology of hummingbirds in relation to flower nectar sugar concentrations, it has become obvious there is no best or most healthful feeder solution. Regardless of what sugar-water concentration you use, be sure to keep your feeders clean and your nectar fresh for the birds.

Dr. Reed Hainsworth and Dr. Larry Wolf are Professors of Biology at Syracuse University in New York. They have been studying hummingbird physiology and ecology for 25 years in the United States and tropical America. So they know what they are talking about.

THE GUIDE.

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