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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Busy bees of the avian world

Pat Munts Staff writer

All I was trying to do was enjoy the last of the evening sun on the deck but they wouldn’t leave me alone. They kept nagging me that they were hungry. Kids? Cats? No – hummingbirds. Both of their half-pint feeders were empty and they needed to fill up before dark. Good thing I stock a quart of pre-made food in the refrigerator.

Hummingbirds are big eaters. Weighing about as much as a nickel, they eat half their body weight in nectar and insects and eight times their weight in water every day. They have to. Their wings beat an average of 200 times a second, allowing them to fly at an average speed of 27 miles per hour and 50 miles per hour when they want to hustle. That burns a lot of energy in a hurry between the first morning light and twilight.

The male hummingbirds begin appearing here in late April, with the females following a week or so later. Both stay until late August. The most common birds we see in Eastern Washington are the rufous and calliope with an occasional black-chinned hummingbird. Once a pair of birds has established themselves in your garden, their offspring will return every year.

Hanging out sugar-water feeders by mid-April is the best way to start attracting the birds. These are usually glass or plastic bottles fitted with feeding tubes or a sipping platform. The feeders need to have red, the hummingbird’s favorite color, on them somewhere. These can be purchased at most home and garden stores. Feeders should be hung where you can watch them but out of the direct sun or the easy reach of cats. Even if you don’t see birds right away, keep the feeders up so that an errant visitor might find them.

Hummingbird nectar for your feeder is four parts water to one part white table sugar (no brown sugar, honey or artificial sweeteners). Boil the mixture for a few minutes to dissolve the sugar and sterilize the mix before storing it in the refrigerator. Do not add red food coloring or buy nectar mixes with coloring in them. The dye can be harmful to the birds. Change nectar every week in cooler weather and every four to five days in the hot summer weather to keep it fresh.

To really keep them around, plant brushy, shrubby bushes, small trees and dense evergreens of any type around your property to provide nesting and roosting spots. The female hummingbird will build her golf ball-sized nest in the lower branches of the bushes. She will make them out of moss, lichens and sculpted plant parts held together with spider webs. Plant a variety of flowering plants that bloom at different times through the season to provide more sources of nectar. For protein, hummingbirds will do a great job of gobbling up aphids, spiders and any other insect they can catch.

Pat Munts is a Master Gardener who has gardened the same acre in Spokane for 30 years. She can be reached at patmunts@yahoo.com.