This link is to a story in our local paper about a lady who nurtures baby hummers who have somehow lost their nesting place. She brought two of the babies with her to our pottery class a couple of weeks ago - she carries them everywhere in a covered basket so she can keep their feedings on time. She then passes them on to another person (mentioned in the article) who has an aviary where they can practice their flying and feeding until they are released. If you've never seen a baby close up, they are about the size of the first bit of your pinkie finger!
http://www.thevillagenews.com/story/36249/
Baby hummer rescue story
thanjyou KaperC for sharing this story!! I had never even thought of trying to also attract fruit flies for food for the hummers and will likely at least put out banana peels to get some fruit flies for their diet
We took a trip to Costa Rica some years ago - bird and flower watching. Everywhere we went, there were bananas out for the tropical birds, so it makes sense. Even our house finches like the oranges we put out for the Orioles.
I need to know how to offer this fruit?? I have stuck an occasional apple or orange on the end of the "hook" of the shephard hook that the feeders are on, but didnt know if that was good or not
We have an old tree stump with a few nails tapped into the top - we just kind of hook the fruit on there. Don't do too much though, because I don't want to attract less attractive critters. Don't know about apples - depends on the bird, I guess - we just stick the oranges out for the Orioles.
In Costa Rica, we just saw bananas and mangoes, etc. on low walls or tables. They wanted to watch the birds and they knew the tourists did, too.
This message was edited Mar 20, 2009 9:51 PM