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.
