Hummingbird Bush and Mockingbirds

My Hummingbird bush (hamelia patens) is huge and I've noticed a ton of birds at it. I realized there are mockingbirds, cardinals and some other small bird I don't recognize (and it won't stay still long enough for me to try to identify) eating the berries off it. I haven't noticed this before, and it may be because the bush is so large this year that I have so many birds there. I read the thread about vitex and cardinals and am interested in other plants that are attractive to birds. I have a duranta and it's loaded with yellow drupes this year, but I haven't seen many birds at it. Does anyone know if birds find that fruit attractive? Since it's common name is pigeon berry, I had assumed that birds would eat it. If not, I've got a monster bush in the back garden that may have to go. Here's a pic of a goldfinch and a purple finch near the feeders. The purple finch looks so funny. It's almost like he's all puffed up and has an expression that asks "are you taking that pic of me?"

Crow, don't mean to argue or anything but isn't that a House Finch w/the stripes on its underside? That's what I have and I was told that they were House Finches. The females are just white w/brown stripes. I apologize if I'm wrong but I've just gotten into ID-ing birds.

Ann

Ann you may be right. I always have a hard time telling the two apart. In fact, I just posted on the new bird forum asking if it was a purple finch or house finch. My Texas birds book doesn't give enough info to differentiate the two. I think I need a better book! Thanks for the input and I suspect you're right.

It seems that both of us learned something: I was able to help someone identify a bird, maybe, and you had a mystery bird that maybe you learned for sure what it is. Later on, we will know....... Beautiful picture, anyway.

Ann

Yes, it is a beautiful photo ~ worth submitting to the BirdFiles when you have a positive ID. I am interested to learn they like the H. patens berries as this is my first year with two small plants. Yippee!

Well, the bird files people agree it's a House Finch, so cudos to Ann for correctly identifying it.

Pod, just to be clear, it's the mocking birds that like the berries, not the finches. Don't want you out there waiting to spot red finches in your plants!

Well ~ that won't happen. Living in the woods, I don't see mockingbirds... lol Thanks for the heads up. But maybe some of the other birds will find them palatable. One of my H patens plants is still potted and I noticed it had a cluster of volunteer seedlings. I wondered if it will be from that plant or something else. Time will tell.

Congrats on the ID Ann. What bird books do y'all use?

That is a lovely photo. One easy way to differentiate House from Purple is the brown on the head (for males). If there is any brown on the head, it's a House. Also, I think Purples look like they were dipped in raspberry jam. It's a deeper red color than the House Finch. Having said all that, I love House Finches. They are so cheerful and fun to watch. Purples are much harder to spot, as they generally do not like "urban" areas.

The Hamela patens berries in my flowerbeds are eaten by Mockingbirds. The Pigeonberry berries are eaten by White Winged Doves and Mockingbirds.

Carla

I have two books that I use all the time. The most recent is "Birds of Texas", DK Publishing, a Smithsonian Handbook. I really like the way it is written. The other is an ancient Audubon Society field guide. I have another Texas bird book, but don't hardly use it.

The bird book I use and have used for 20 years or so is Peterson's book on Texas birds - don't have the book right in front of me so don't know the exact title. It is informative and explains things very well. The pictures of all these birds are drawings not photographs. I am told that this one that I have is the latest one out since Peterson died some time back but the book lives on. I'm sure there are many good ones but the ones just for Texas are the best for us as TX is a BIG place and we have all the corridors of where the birds migrate to and from the US.

Ann

I had to go look Petersons sounded so familiar. I do have Petersons Birds of Texas. I also have the Golden guide to field identification Birds of North America. But my favorite was 25 cents at a flea market. Stokes Field Guide to Birds ~ Eastern Region. You are so right on TX being a big place. A friend and fellow bird enthusiast took a transfer to San Angelo so we bought him the Stokes book for the Western Region as a farewell gift. He was delighted as he said birds were different there.

Good thread! A good online birding site is: birds.cornell.edu/

Mockingbirds don't like the woods? We have had lots of mockingbirds on beautyberry bushes, but we have clearing around the house and those plants. Maybe
that's the difference.

LOL ~ they don't like my woods. Don't know why but we rarely see one. We have about a two acre clearing interspersed with trees. Maybe not much of their food sources here.

Crowell....don't get rid of the duranta!!! You can always prune it one main trunk and form a small tree if it gets too bushy and overgrown. I have a couple that are a good 8 to 10 feet tall and about as much wide.

I get mockingbirds, sparrows, great kiskadees and some little wren-looking birds on my duranta. Not sure if they eat the berries or just like the cover it provides. They often hunker down in it during cold and windy days.

It is a beautiful shrub when it's in full bloom and it is an excellent nectar source for hummingbirds, butterflies and sphinx moths!!! They all absolutely love duranta blooms. It is also a larval host for the rare Marius Hairstreak (Rekoa marius) butterfly. It really is a butterfly magnet.

I've not had any sprout up from fallen seed either...so leaving them on the bush doesn't bother me but I still like to keep the ends trimmed - as it puts out new blossoms throughout the year.

~ Cat



This message was edited Jan 6, 2009 8:16 PM

TexasPuddy, I will keep the duranta! When I bought it, the tag said it would get 4 x 4 feet. I still have trouble remembering that plant sizes stated on tags don't mean much if it's grown in our Houston climate. The thing reached about 10 to 12 feet tall the first year. I bought it go in a corner of my yard to cover an ugly phone company box thingy. I do trim it back, but just enough in width to keep the walkway in front of it clear. I don't care how tall it gets, so that's not a problem. I do like the weeping form it has when unpruned, but may have to turn it into a more tree like specimen if it keeps growing outward. I know the butterflies love it, but didn't realize it was a larval host. I'm trying to get the gardens where they are full of plants that the birds and butterflies love. I'm also a sucker for anything fragrant.

Thanks for all the great info on the plant.
Crow

H. patens is a very good habitat shrub. While it's blooming, hummingbirds and butterflies love it! Great photo of the birds!

Come spring, Pod, you may be glad those early rising and easily aroused from sleep Mockingbirds are elsewhere.

LOL Antiquedrose ~ I too am an early riser and up before dawn. I would love them and do enjoy listening to the night hawks or Chuck wills widows if I can convince DH to sleep with the windows open.

Must agree...those Mockingbirds are early risers and easily aroused from sleep! I do sleep with my windows open when the night is cool - my bedroom faces the backyard so I get hear all kinds of critter noises.

Will say though...the hummingbirds are up and about even before the sun it out! I can hear them chirping as they perch on suncatchers hanging from my backporch eave. If I don't keep the feeders stocked with nectar they tend to get really, really noisy! Who has who trained? :o)

When the family gets together at ranch you can hear the owls hooting in the early mornings. My sister-in-law has three chihuahuas that weigh about 5 lbs...must keep a watch over them when they are turned loose for their morning potty break!

~ Cat

I had a mocking bird here for quite a long time that would sit on the top of the chimney each evening. I could tell it was the same one because he went through the exact same song each evening. It was the funniest thing I've ever heard and I wish I had a video of it. He went through the sounds of a car alarm. He mimicked it perfectly, the whee-yooou, whee-yoooou, whee-yooou, then beep, beep, beep, then the long drawn out siren sound. I loved that bird! It made me laugh every time I heard it.

Too funny crow!!! I'll have to pay better attention to the mockingbirds in my back yard here in the city. There's always sirens and car horns going off...perhaps it is them and I just never realized it!

Back at the ranch the mockingbirds imitate the cat's meowing :o)

~ Cat

Oh sisters of my heart! Don't you just love the critters? But the coyotes, that's a sound that I'm ambivalent about. Sometimes they sound really close to the house.

There was one last night that sounded like a regular dog at first and I tried calling him up to the house, afraid it was a dog caught up with the coyotes.

Critters not popular out here in the country: feral hogs, armadillos, coons, coyotes and any dog left out to roam around. Coyotes and dogs sometimes kill pets and the others (including the dogs) do a lot of damage with the yards and plants. Coons also drive you nuts trying to steal food. Some people don't like the deer, but if you have a fence around your yard, I think deer and people can get along...especially if the deer are culled from time to time so the population is reasonable. We don't usually see mockingbirds either. I want to get some mistletoe, btw, gotta go out somewhere and find some....I've heard different opinions on how to "plant" it. There's people saying it kills trees, but that's not true.

We have mistletoe growing from lots of mesquite trees...hasn't killed any of those that I know of. I keep checking for signs of GPH on mistletoe but never have any luck...then considering how abundant it is I assume it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack :o) - evenso, how come I don't see more GPH? Hmmmm????

We also get lots of deer, feral hogs, racoons, bunnies, coyotes and other critters out here. We put up some game cameras a couple of weeks ago and this is the first time we were able to get a photo of a coyote. We know they are out there because we see gobs of tracks and can hear the howling. Uhmm...we went out at 10pm on Friday night with laptop in hand to download the camera cards. We were puttering around in the golf cart with the lights off because my brother was sitting up on the back seat with the night vision monocular. We got to see lots of deer in the dark!!! Way cool!!! Anyway, we were uploading the card from the game cam by the pond and we could hear a pack of coyotes that sounds awfully close. My SIL is reading the Twighlight series by Stephanie Meyer and she was freaking out! HA! HA! Of course, me making scary comments about vampires and werewolves didn't help. ROFL!!!

We have yet to get any feral hog photos but here's a coyote. Mind you, this is in the area where I had my 'flower bed' - will add a couple of deer photos so you can see why all the flowers disappeared!!!

~ Cat

It's been cold lately...so no butterflies...but will amuse you with the game cam photos. Here's the deer in my 'ranch flower bed' - ya'll remember that plot of wildflowers where they left only the zinnias? Now I know why all the other plants disappeared :o)

~ Cat

There are four deer in this photo...note the shiny beady eyes in the background :o)

This message was edited Jan 11, 2009 10:43 AM

They were even caught on cam at 11:15 in the morning. Not sure why the temperature is recorded at 115F ?! A malfunction no doubt.

~ Cat

cat, where is Edinburgh?

Edinburg is in Hidalgo County and way down south in the Lower Rio Grande Valley...near the Mexico border. We are right next to McAllen, Mission, Hidalgo, Pharr, Alamo, Harlingen etc...Brownsville is about an hour's drive away. The airports are in McAllen (Hidalgo County), Harlingen and Brownsville (Cameron County).

The photos on the game cam were taken at the ranch in San Isidro which is in Starr County. A good 45 miles away from Edinburg.

~ Cat

This message was edited Jan 11, 2009 10:47 AM

Thanks.

Christi