Hummingbird haven

Bees do it.

Bears do it.

People do it and

birds do it.

No, I'm not talking about that, dirty birds! I'm talking about stuffing your face!

So it's that time of year again. Not back to school time, but put on winter fat time. We wait until Thanksgiving, but the hummingbirds are doing it now. They are trying to double their body weight for their long journey south across the Gulf of Mexico to migrate and winter over in Central America.

So PLEASE don't take down those feeders, you won't be keeping them here, only to suffer from a frost and die. You will actually be doing them a disservice if you take down your feeders because now is the time they really need that easy food source. Besides, they migrate based on length of day, not on temperatures or availability of food.

Since males lose half their body weight during mating season, they are trying to compensate right now by "carb-loading" at your feeders and the remaining blooms of summer.

Also, the babies are out and about now and moms will try to coax them to the feeders eventually, first showing them the flowers as food sources and then on to the easy nectar in your feeders.

Don't hastily pull up those petunias, million bells and other flowers to replace them with ineffective mums just yet. They need all they can get.

Just imagine if you have to make a road trip on an empty stomach or run a marathon with no breakfast. What if there were no McDonald's on the way to grandma's?

You'd be pretty steamed if one day you went to the fridge for a slice of apple pie only to find somebody had thrown it away, wouldn't you?

Just think about that before you try to take down those feeders.

Been a Long Time!

It's been a while, mostly due to problems logging on to my account since the change to gmail supported logging in. I don't know if that's proper grammar for tech-talk, but it was the best I could do!

I'm happy to have finally worked though the bugs and can waxwing poetic again about birds. Oops, a little birdnerd humor there!

Last baby bird season was kind of a bust for several reasons. First of all, we were undergoing some serious construction so we could not repair the camera birdhouse. As we speak, it is empty, even though the blues built a nest, but apprently did not have successful egg laying.

Next, I put up several houses in the neighborhood to start my very own bluebird trail! I had to rally for volunteers to agree to have them on their property, but due to a delay in the newsletter going out (it was not sent out until middle of April I think), I got them up late. I had made a pretty convincing flyer (IMHO) including a picture I took of Lloyd, the very fertile male in my yard. I had six takers and added one to an existing post at the end of our street (it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?) and two houses in one yard. So a total of 8 houses have gone up and I am very exited about it!

I had a busy summer and unfortunately was under the weather for much of it so I couldn't do as much monitoring as I would have liked.

This year is pretty good so far, but a bit of a mixed bag. I am sure some of it is weather related and I think some of it is the result of some new parents in the neighborhood.

The good news is that our blues built a nest in a previously never occupied house in our yard and had six successful fledglings! The bad news is I didn't get any footage, but I am happy they all made it out!

More news soon and some fun sightings, neighborhood inhabitants, and some helpful information related to other critters not of the winged variety.

I'll also try to post some fun bird video!