I have two coworkers whose birthdays are 4 days apart. Before their birthdays, we had all been talking about the wildlife are faring during this drought. One of the girls had already started buying bird feeders and native plants, but was lamenting the fact that she didn't have a hummingbird feeder.
Thus I went to Petsmart and bought us all some feeders as the feeder, I felt, was pretty darn good (and cheap): It's red plastic with no yellow parts on it at all and it fully comes apart. The downside is that while it does come apart, the bulb part does have a fairly narrow opening. I have found that by cutting a few triangles out of the sponge part at the top of a bottle brush cleaner, that it will fit easily into the bulb thus allowing easy cleaning.
I hung mine out last weekend (August 28th), and you'll be proud to know that I did it myself - mostly because the husband hurt his wrist a few weeks ago, though he did supervise.
12 hours later I saw my first hummingbird at the feeder (a female black chin or ruby throat who has shown up every morning around 7:30) and just today saw 2 males - one each of the black chin and ruby throat. YAY!
No pictures of hummingbirds yet - they won't come by the feeder when I'm outside. We're working on our trust issues.
2 comments:
They'll come. I can't wait to see your pictures when they do:)
Glad to hear of this source. I may have to get one. I normally rely on my plant and they are around here every day but I can see already we are not going to have great Salvia leucantha like we usually do in the fall. Right now the goldfinches are going crazy for the seeds on the Texas sunflower, which is looking ugly and wind blown. They sure do love it.
Post a Comment