Hummingbird Gardening in the Upper Midwest

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Wednesday, July 25, 2012


A flash of harmless lightning, A mist of rainbow dyes, The burnished sunbeams brightening From flower to flower he flies.
----John Banister Tabb

Hi Everyone,

It’s been a very long time since we’ve communicated with you. Of course, we’ve been extremely busy with our hummingbird garden (and who hasn’t been this summer with all the heat, watering, Japanese Beetles, unusually bad critter damage, etc.??), our families, jobs, etc., so there’s really no excuse other than “time got away from us.” We are happy to share that our health is good (other than a health issue with my sister who lives in Milwaukee, but it’s not life threatening) and there have been no more losses in our family and that’s always good news. But, we are writing now to update you on “Hummingbirds 2012” and to check in with you to see how things are going.

We saw our first hummingbird of the 2012 season, a healthy looking adult male at a feeder, on May 3. Our first female hummer arrived several days later on May 7. We have been lucky enough to have had at least one hummer sighting every day since then except for nine days (they were probably here, but we just didn’t see them). We were hoping to beat our record of last year, when our first and earliest ever hummingbird was seen on April 30, but that unfortunately was not meant to be. With such an early and warm spring, hummers were seen in Wisconsin in mid-March, which has never happened before---in fact, the first hummer seen in Wisconsin in 2012 was seen on March 20 north of Madison (and we had our feeders out and ready in March). To view this year’s amazing Hummingbird Migration Map, please visit the following link:
http://www.hummingbirds.net/map.html
You can easily compare this year’s map to prior years to see how truly unusual it is! To explore the highlights of this hummingbird season and northward migration in greater detail, check out the Journey North website at:
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/humm/index.html
It will be interesting to see how this phenomenon will affect the timing of the fall migration and our fall gardens. We have seen our earliest baby hummingbird ever on June 30, a hatch year male, and are seeing many of our perennials bloom about a month ahead of schedule. We feel like we’re living in a different zone! Usually, 90 degree days are few and far between in Wisconsin, but we’ve actually lost track of how many there have been this year!

We had an extremely busy winter and spring of “Gardening for Hummingbirds” programs. We traveled far and wide and were even the keynote speakers at a Gardening Conference in Illinois for several hundred people. We again presented two programs at the Dane County Garden Expo and at Wildbirds Unlimited in Middleton and are so very grateful for the kind support of Wisconsin Public Television and Wildbirds Unlimited for our efforts. We added some new and fun material to our program to freshen it up a bit too. We also developed an entirely new program called “Gardening for Hummingbirds With Native Plants” for a group called The Wild Ones---this program was a big challenge since we had gardened with some native plants, but certainly not exclusively (if you would like to receive the printed materials from this program, just let us know). We look forward to presenting our program for Olbrich Gardens in Madison for the first time this fall. Telling people about our passion for hummingbirds and gardening for them is fun and exciting and always a little unpredictable, but how could we do what we do and not share it with the community?

We’ve been struggling with a record number of Japanese Beetles on our plants this year and it takes hours of time and energy every day to pick them off the plants (time we could have spent writing to you or doing just about anything else!) Unfortunately, many of their favorite plants are also very desirable plants for hummingbirds and include:
-Cuphea ‘David Verity’ (leaves)
-Butterfly Bush (Buddleia) (flowers)
-Bee Balm ‘Jacob Kline’ (Monarda) (flowers)
-Canna indica (Wild Canna) (leaves)
-Rose of Sharon ‘Hibiscus syriacus’ (flowers and leaves!)
Japanese Beetles also adore any Hibiscus(perennial or tender), perennial sweet peas, roses, hollyhocks, grape vines, apple trees, linden trees, and birch trees and are particularly attracted to white or pale flowers on those plants.

We assume a mild winter and early spring increased their survival and numbers (although we saw our first beetle on June 20, the same date, give or take one day, as usual---the earlier spring did not affect their timing.)

Many people who attend our programs ask us about strategies for dealing with these unwanted and non-native pests. Unfortunately, options are limited, especially since the use of a strong pesticide is not advisable in a hummingbird garden (or if you have children or outdoor pets). Systemic pesticides will kill beetles that feed on the plant or tree it is applied to, but will also kill bees and might not be safe. Traps will only draw more beetles to your yard and we did not find that they made a difference in our small yard (ask your neighbor to hang one up though and it might help you!) We recently learned that application of Milky Spore is really not effective, especially if none of your neighbors are also applying it. The best way to address them is by hand picking---fill up a bucket with soapy water and drop the beetles into the bucket---many people are afraid to touch them or are grossed out by touching them, but they won’t bite or sting and you just get used to it---you can also hold the bucket underneath the flower or stem with the beetles and knock them in without having to touch them. A last option is to avoid planting any plant in your garden that the beetles are attracted to, which is what many gardeners have chosen to do---thank goodness they really aren’t interested in salvias!!

These days we feel like we have a water hose manacled to our hand as we try to keep our garden alive and thriving and ready for hummingbirds. It’s like a desert out there, but we usually don’t grow desert and heat loving plants in cool summer Wisconsin. Our typical plants like a lot of water. Try having a yard filled with plants in the Impatiens family, Cardinal Flower, hosta, and Cuphea and extreme watering will take on a whole new meaning. We are not excited about seeing our next water bill! We were so thrilled to receive the significant rainfall last week and feel that it will a difference in the quality of our garden, especially many of our more tender salvias, many of which stopped or decreased their flowering in the blistering heat and dryness.

We sincerely hope that you will visit our website and check out the “Gallery of Hummingbird Flowers” and find a plant or two that you might like to try in your hummingbird garden this summer. Because it is a bit late in the season and growing conditions are very challenging, we are not going to focus on gardening in this newsletter. But, this does not mean that you can’t take a trip to Klein’s Floral on Madison’s East Side or The Bruce Company on Madison’s Westside (or a nursery in your own community!) and select a hummingbird plant (maybe even on sale by now!) like Salvia guaranitica, Salvia ‘Purple Majesty’, Cuphea, or Salvia greggii and grow it in a container for your hungry hummingbird guests.

Of the upmost importance is the listing of “2012 Upcoming Hummingbird Events” that follows this greeting and we wish to draw your attention to that. We will be attending the Hummingbird Society’s Hummingbird Festival in Sedona in early August, but we have also attended many of the other events on our list in prior years. And, don’t forget about our upcoming Garden Tour in mid-September (September 19 and 23)---we hope to see some of you there and we promise that we are fighting through the drought to keep our garden alive just for you!

Take care and enjoy your hummingbirds and gardens this year and don’t work too hard in the heat. Most importantly, take time to savor your families, your hummingbird guests, and the best that summer has to offer. We hope to see some of you at our upcoming Garden tour on September 19 and 23---Please visit our website or e-mail us for more details.
Til next time!
Kathi and Michael
 
2012 UPCOMING HUMMINGBIRD EVENTS
WHY AUGUST & SEPTEMBER HUMMINGBIRDS ARE SPECIAL
A hummingbird in your garden is always a special experience, no matter when or where the bird is seen. However, we really enjoy hummingbirds in late August and September the most. At this time of year, all of the birds (and there are naturally more hummingbirds in the late summer and early fall because the adults are merrily joined by the immature, just hatched birds) are feeding furiously so they can migrate to Mexico and Central America for the winter. Sometimes the birds look like little golf balls, their tummies are so huge and they will double their body weight to prepare for their long and arduous journey. We must remember that hummingbirds don’t migrate in flocks and that each bird conducts its life as an independent operator---this includes the newly born birds who have never made this long journey before. In any case, they are frolicking and competing for food and their antics and squeeking noises (we call this chittering or hummgiggling) and are highly entertaining. We also enjoy seeing what plants the young birds choose to explore and feed from and their often clumsy attempts to use a feeder.

In the spring, the birds are much quieter for sure as the wary adults quickly and efficiently move through our gardens to their breeding grounds further north. In August and September, we can get amazingly close to the young ones as they feed and sometimes they will even come right up to your face and investigate (as one checked out my dark pink lipstick one year!) It is awesome to think about what they are capable of doing and the incredible length of their migration (about 1,000 miles one way.) Of course, many of the young birds will perish, but we prefer not to think about that as we enjoy their energetic and playful presence in our lives, souls, and hearts.

NEW RESERVE TO HELP PROTECT ONE OF THE WORLD’S RAREST AND SMALLEST BIRDS
There are only a few hummingbirds that are endangered, simply because hummingbirds are so darned adaptable at changing their lifestyle as we continue to destroy their habitat. However, there are a few non-migratory hummingbirds in the southern part of this hemisphere that don’t have the capacity to adapt like the hummingbirds we see in the US (the Juan Fernández Firecrown in Chile is one that jumps to mind.) Another that we just learned about is the Esmeraldas Woodstar in Ecuador.
“D.C., June 13, 2012) One of the world's rarest and smallest hummingbirds, the tiny Esmeraldas Woodstar, will receive new protections from a reserve established in Ecuador through a cooperative effort involving Fundación Jocotoco, World Land Trust-US, and American Bird Conservancy. “
Here is a link to the remainder of this fascinating article and a photo of the beautiful Esmeraldas Woodstar and the unique partnership that is fighting to save it:
http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/120613.html
 

BOOK CORNER: “DO HUMMINGBIRDS HUM?: FASCINATING ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT HUMMINGBIRDS” by George West & Carol Butler (2010)

This wonderful book presents a comprehensive look at the world of hummingbirds in an easy to access question and answer format and also includes many useful appendices. George West is a knowledgeable and experienced professor of zoophysiology and really knows his stuff. If you are looking for a book that really “covers all the bases” about hummingbirds, this is the book and it includes so much interesting information that we’ve never seen in any other book---don’t expect any fluff in this straight to the point book! The book comes very highly recommended by banders and other hummingbird experts and we can’t recommend it highly enough. Highly affordable in a paperback form from amazon.com, the link below includes reviews and access to purchasing the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Do-Hummingbirds-Hum-Fascinating-Questions/dp/0813547385
 
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF HUMMINGBIRD FEEDERS
In this furiously hot weather when gardening certainly can be hit and miss, well maintained hummingbird feeders just might be the way to go if you want to enjoy hummingbirds. When temperatures rise, you may have to change the nectar as often as every day, or at least every other day, but the rewards of maintaining hummingbird feeders well can be great. Although, if you will be on vacation and have no one to take care of the feeders or cannot care for them due to some other reason, it’s always best to take the feeders down rather than risk harming the birds with spoiled nectar.
As a review, please visit this very helpful link at www.hummingbirds.net where all of your questions about hummingbird feeders and their use will be answered:
http://www.hummingbirds.net/feeders.html

A few highlights to keep in mind:
  • · The best hummingbird feeder has red on the feeder and is durable and easy to clean (remember, it will be exposed daily to the elements!)
  • · Never use anything other than water and white table sugar in a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio in hummingbird feeders. Other nutritional supplements are costly and unnecessary and will not improve the health of your hummingbirds or bring more birds into your garden.
  • · Use ant moats (they may have to be refilled with water every day when temperatures soar or winds are high) to keep ants off your feeders.
  • · Paint yellow bee guards red with nail polish to discourage bees (yellow attracts bees)---set up a “bee feeder” with a stronger solution (half water/half sugar) far away from you and your hummingbird feeders. NEVER spray insecticide on your hummingbird feeders.
  • · Soaking feeders in a mild bleach/water solution periodically will help to remove mold and bacteria from the feeders. Rinse well with water and be assured that a chemical reaction between the sugar water solution and any bleach residue will render the feeder safe for your hummingbirds.
  • · When temperatures drop below freezing, bring your feeder in for the night and put it back outside before sunrise or use a flood lamp to keep the nectar thawed.
  • · Keeping your feeders up into the fall WILL NOT discourage the birds from migrating---they migrate based on light of day and their own internal instincts. Our feeders (and flowers) play no role in their “internal migration clock” and may lend a helping hand to birds that are migrating late (we had a hummingbird until November 17 a few years ago and were so glad that we decided to leavewell maintained feeders up that late!)
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