hummingbirds lost food sources?

I'm worried about the hummingbirds that I see looking for all of the flowers that were here a couple of weeks ago. All of my salvias have taken a hit and I'm not sure how much nectar the birds can find out there. Thinking I should maybe go get a couple of feeders today. Whatcha' think?
Sherry

It certainly won't hurt--they need lots of energy to keep going when the weather's cold so I'm sure they'd appreciate any extra help! Not to mention it'll get them back in your yard where you can enjoy them!

Well, I've always preferred to just grow tons of flowers for them....I've never been sure if the sugar-water is good for them On the other hand I don't want them dying from cold and lack of food,either. So', I'm off to get feeders for them...perhaps I should pick up some bird seed also. I've been too distracted, should have done this several weeks ago. Poor little babes.

I agree about the flowers, I think they like them better too! My guess is that they've found some flowers still blooming (or other people's feeders) and are surviving, but I think when the weather's been extreme like this and taken away some of their food source it wouldn't hurt to supplement with the feeder even if flowers are better for them in the long run (plus it reminds them that your yard is a good food source, so when your flowers come back it'll take them less time to find them!)

wcgypsy, I found this info on the 'other' garden web site. http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/hummingbird/2003024412003385.html
I went looking, as I keep a feeder going all year and it got me to thinking, I might be doing more harm than good. But it would seem that it is in fact a good thing to keep feeders up year round.


And don't want to start a war here, but it is not necessary to add red food dye to your nectar mix. Just my humble opinion.


also http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/hummingbird/

I think I read the same thing somewhere about not needing to put red dye in. I don't know the specific chemical that's in red food coloring, but I have to think the hummers are probably better off without it if they don't need it to find the feeder.

No,I won't put red dye in it. I remembered reading that before that it isn't necessary and yeah,I'm sure not good for them. So, I went and got a couple at WM, checked a couple of nurseries and no one had anything very artistic. Just wanted to get some up for them. They do have my big Cape Honeysuckle, but it's only in flower when I water it. I kept waiting for some rain here, but I don't think that's ever going to happen, so as soon as I water everything the tecomaria pops into bloom almost instantly. While I was at it, picked up bird seed also. All the critters may be having a hard time this winter. Thanks for the link, begonia. I'm worried about my Monarch cats also...no matter how much more asclepias I plant, it's never enough. They've stripped off everything I have growing and there are still a couple of babies on one of the asclepias, so I've moved them to one with leaves still. Had 300 seedlings coming up in pots for them, but half have been wiped out with the freezes. We do what we can and that's it.
Sherry

The website for the hummingbird society is a great resource. I have checked in many times to make sure I am doing the right thing for my hummers. www.hummingbirdsociety.org.

Thanks, gardenerme.Sherry

There are winter bloomers to keep the hummingbirds going. Try Arbutus Unedo, Manzanita, Ribes Speciosum (California native gooseberries and currants) and Teucrium Fruticans 'Azureum'. My teucrium is still blooming through several nights around 20 degrees and the hummingbirds like it.

Mary, Thank you....I'm talking this week...I hate to see them flying around my crispy salvias loking for dinner and nothing there. While those will help them in the future, they'll have to make do with hummer feeders for a month or two.
Sherry

My cestrums, when protected from frost, bloom all year round and the hummers love them. The hybrids -- pink and red -- stay in bloom whereas the yellow only blooms 2-3x per year.

I have several hummers that stay here all winter. But with it getting down to 22 nearly every AM I have been bring in the feeders to keep them from freezing I set them right in front of my coffee pot so I remember to put them out first thing in the AM. I wonder what those tiny creatures do to keep from freezing in these temps all night? I imagine them snuggling up under some thick moss or going in one of the many brid houses around the property. I have been putting fruit & seed out for the other birds too, the little snow birds really like the oranges, of course this will be the last of them for the birds, they will be too expensive to buy! The last couple of days we have had 2 male & 1 female purple finches visiting the seed feeder. I wonder why they call them purple finches when they are actually red? With it being so cold, it gives you a lot of time to sit & ponder those silly questions! LOL
Bj

I worry about the hummers after I read somewhere this last year that they can actually die in their sleep if not kept sufficiently nourished. The cestrums that I have are nocturnum and the flowering since the freezes is zero. I'll be lucky if I have a few still alive. This has never been a problem here before because we've never had weather likd this on our property in 24 years. The hummers have always had plenty of flowers to choose from. I'll have to plant other things with winter freezes in mind now. But til then they'll have the feeders.

I never saw hummers at my C. nocturnum (even before the frost killed it), they seem to like the red and pink ones much better.

I thought as much with the white flowers. Now this afternnoon I've noticed newly emerged Monarchs. It's in the 70's today so they probably thought it was safe...hope they can take the cold tonight. Night after night after night.!

as warm as it was today and with so many aloes flowering - we didn't see a single hummer. We haven't seen any since the cold snap. Through the fall they came into our greehhouses and feed on the nectar of the Echeveria flowers... haven't been there either...

bob
:>)

i have not check any of the recommended links above, from personal experience/s, since the upper desert do experience cold, frosty winters. i try not to put up a feeder so the hummers will do what nature has intended for them to do. go to warmer areas and hibernate??? this time of the year, non are seen only when the weather gets warm. one thing for sure, those that are "resident' to my area always come back!

i, also try not encourage the hummer to hang around by putting nectar on the hummer feeder cuz if they stay, they perished in the process... that was a hard lesson learned. i felt sorry they did not food to eat. try not to encourage the hummer to stay. i've seen some dead and frozen on the ground one winter. i am not trying to paint an ugly picture, i just do not want the same mistake to be repeated.

Your situation is different though, in wcgypsy's case and most of the other people who posted here, I think the hummers usually overwinter in the area and don't migrate (or maybe they migrated to zone 9/10 from somewhere else) I see your point about not wanting to attract birds that should have been migrating to somewhere else, but if they don't normally migrate, or if our areas are their usually stopping point for the winter, I don't think it hurst to help them out a bit. Granted, you could still make an argument for letting nature take its course, but since this winter was really unusual I don't think it's the end of the world to give them a bit of help.

i used to live in Los Angeles, if not mistaken zone 10. there were hummers there too, but they do migrate during the winter time, i never see any hummers around winter during the nearly 40 yrs. i've there. my house is near the ocean, so it should be warmer there too.

if u will take note, i did mention Upper Desert to point i was from a different environment, not to be compared or mistaken to other zones or area. i thought it was clear???

i am not, NOT arguing with anyone, i am merely trying to pass on a very bad experience learned previously. therefore, i do not understand why u will be on my case. this is a forum to inform and exchange note with one another, so we may learn from each other.

MaVieRose, thanks for the info....no one is arguing. Many things may be changing and maybe a bit about micro-climates also. We've been here 24 years and at least in this spot (don't know at all about others), we have hummers year round. I wouldn't have to put out feeders to encourage them, we have their favorite nectar flowers flowering year round, but if they've learned that this is okay year round, I don't want them to learn the hard way that this is an abnormal year here. Maybe it will become the norm here and they'll have to learn to "salsa" in Mexico!
Sherry

aloe flowers in my area of S. Calif. San Diego County(7 miles inland at 540 ft elevation ) have drawn hummers every day of the Winter when it isn't raining. I don't know what they do then, I can't see them while I'm inside.

It has been so for 22 years I have been at this location.

Many of my neighbors also have winter flowerers all winter and also see them. There were a few aloes that didn't even lose nectar during the coldest of these days - yet even in the warmth of the day no hummers...They are now MIA. They don't migrate like geese or ducks or even small insect/seed-eaters. They are too fragile for that with very little means of storing long-term energy needed to move the long distances needed to get from one food-source to another. The frost belt for this cold snap moved well into Baja.

I so hope they can re-establish themselves here like they have been since I first began to notice them in the winter 22 years ago..

meanwhile, the lonely, but fiesty busy little birds are missed. They often like to make 0-angle attack approaches to my pollinating brushes as I hand-pollinate the Aloes. Still many new bees!! At high speed, they can turn on a dime!

bob
:>)

Sherry,

Our posts crossed.

I am in SW Bonsall, we haven't seen a hummer since the cold snap..have You? I hope , I hope.

We had many microclimates here where the temp didn't seem to get under 32F.

bob
:>)

Our hummers are still around and seemed to deal with the January cold wave better than most of us did or the plants for that matter. Here at our new location there isn't much for them to feast on, but I did make sure I brought some potted Salvias with me and have some Aloes in bloom. The Salvias didn't fair too well during the freeze, but I'm taking a wait and see attitude. I brought the feeders up here from the old house over the weekend to supplement the few food sources I have available here. Here at the new house we had 20 nights of below freezing, with many of those night-time lows in the low to mid-20's. Lots of damage to the succulents I put out in the late Fall, most will be disfigured, but seem to be hanging on.

Talk about 15 degrees of separation.....lows at the old house were about 37 (which goes right along with the prior 8 years of growing that garden) with no damage at all. Many of the succulents that were severely damaged here, were untouched in the old garden. Duplicates are a good thing!

.

Fortunately we never even really have a frost,though we did this year. I see what looks like dead avos and citrus everywhere, yet our avos,macadamias, sapotes, orange are okay. I had not set out a lot of new salvias,still in the shade house in pots, but the ones in the ground are pretty hardy for not being established. We have large Cape Honeysuckles flowering constantly for the hummers and now the crocosmia have kicked in also, but I see them darting around the dried salvia flowers. Some of the salvia are flowering again already and a lot of the newly rooted cuttings in pots are also. I see the hummers hitting those. We do what we can, but cannot save everything. I want to put out a sign on the asclepias for the monarchs that says,"Don't lay any more eggs here, you've already eaten it all!" I had to laugh when I went to one of my nurseries to pick up another variety of asclepias...turns out the cats had already stripped all of their potted asclepias curassavica down to nubs and hadn't touched this new variety...so I knew I didn't want that one for my cats!

MaVieRose--not sure why you thought I was on your case, I definitely wasn't but sorry if you misunderstood. As you pointed out, this is a forum to share info with each other and I wasn't even disagreeing with you, only saying that what was true for you in your zone wasn't true for those of us in warmer zones. I just didn't want people in zone 9 or 10 getting worried that they might be doing something bad for the hummers.

I saw a hummer in my neighborhood last weekend for the first time in a while--still not much blooming around here but hopefully that'll change soon! I have some Grevillea's coming into bloom so hopefully they'll like those and stick around! Most of my Salvia's and my Malvaviscus which was always their favorite are looking pretty crispy and brown, crossing my fingers they'll come back for me in the spring!

Its encouraging that you saw one last w/e. anyway.. maybe i'm overly concerned
bob
:>)

I'm sure yours will be back, maybe a few got lost from the cold, but I'm sure some of them followed the scent of flowers to a warmer place and will be back! I hadn't seen any in a while either, but then last weekend I saw several at a nursery a bit south of here, and one in one of my neighbor's yards. So I think it's just a matter of time!

I saw some today. Hopefully in the garden tomorrow again.

That's great! I knew they would come back for you! I'm sure as we continue towards spring you'll start to see more and more of them.

Sherry & Bob, our hummers were here all through the cold snap. One of my feeders is right outside the kitchen window and they were buzzing the manzanitas, too. Even though it was in the low 20's, the feeder didn't freeze and they seemed to do fine. In fact, I was surprised to see them early in the morning, thinking they might extend their sleep due to the cold. I seem to remember they go into a kind of stupor to save energy when it's cold. Is this right?

Hope yours have returned OK.

Kathleen in Bonsall