(This is a Cerinthe major 'Purpurescense', an annual that usually winters over in my garden, and is a great hummingbird food plant.)

I love hummingbirds, and do all that I can to encourage them to visit and stay in my garden. (I have found that many gardeners are also avid birders as well--the two hobbies are easily linked.) To this end, I have several plants throughout the garden that the hummingbirds use for food and shelter. This diary is an ongoing project, and will include facts about hummingbirds, plants that they like, and some of the best ways to feed them and attract them to your garden. Pictures will hopefully be forthcoming.

Hummingbird Facts:

(Source: Newfield, Nancy L. and Barbara Nielson. Hummingbird Gardens. Shelburne, VT: Chapters, 1996.)

• - Hummingbirds eat roughly half their body weight in nectar and insects daily. If the average man had a metabolism comparable to a hummingbird, he would have to eat 285 pounds of hamburger every day to maintain his weight! They eat 5-8 times per hour for 30 to 60 seconds at a time, and have to rest for a few minutes in between feedings.
• -Because they do eat insects, it's best to have a pesticide-free garden if you want to attract hummingbirds. Use IPM instead, and you will keep most pests under control without having to resort to poison.
• -Hummingbirds are great pollinators--as they stick their bills into the bloom, they brush pollen off the bloom and onto their heads and bills. As they visit other blooms, they deposit pollen on the stigmas as they eat the nectar, which they lick at the rate of 13 licks per second rather than suck.
• -Hummers do not have a sense of smell, so they are not attracted to fragrant plants. They find food by eyesight.
• -A hummingbird can take a bath on a damp leaf. They also like sprinkling water. They won't use an ordinary birdbath because the water is too deep.
• -Hummingbirds are the smallest birds in the world--average weight less than 1/2 an ounce, about the weight of one penny. They have the most rapid metabolism of any bird--avg. heart rate of 1,269 beats per minute, and they have the largest known relative heart size of all birds. Their heart represents 2.4 percent of their body weight.
• -When hummingbirds fly, they beat their wings 60 times per second. They can fly in every direction--up, down, backward, forward, and hover in place. Unlike other birds, they have rigid bones in their wings except at the shoulder joint, where the wing can move freely in all directions. When they hover their wings move in a horizontal figure 8 pattern, which allows them to stay in one place. Their average speed is 25-30 miles per hour--it looks faster because they are so small. During their aerial courtship flights, they zoom up and then fly straight down at 60 miles per hour.
• - Just before bedtime, hummingbirds fill up on nectar and insects, then retreat to a secluded perch. On cool nights, they enter a state called "torpor." Their metabolism and heart rate slows, and their body temperature drops. They can still cling to their perch even in torpor, and you might see one that is upside down yet still holding onto the perch, because it is still in a torpid state. They don't go into torpor every night. They only do so when their energy reserves are so low that they have to resort to this method of energy conservation. When they do it lasts from 8 to 14 hours.
• -In this area, we have mostly Anna's hummingbirds and Rufous hummingbirds. The Anna's hummingbird is the most prodigious singer of the North American hummingbirds. Anna's have blue-green upper parts. Male Anna's have red crowns and throats. Rufous has rusty colored feathers, and the male's throat is vibrant orange-red and bordered below by pure white. Their feathers look black with no coloration when they are perched in the shade--it's only when the feathers are exposed to light that they show a colored irridescence.
• -Rufous hummers will migrate 3,000 miles from from their breeding range in Alaska to their wintering grounds in Mexico. Ruby-throated hummers fly 500 miles nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico on their migration route--they do so by increasing their body weight by 50%, storing fat to use as energy as they make the trip. Anna's have a large range where they find food and shelter, and they do not migrate but stay in that range year round.
• -A hummingbird nest is the size of a walnut shell. It stretches as the babies grow to accommodate their growing bodies. Anna's start breeding in December, much earlier than many songbirds and can continue through June. After they mate they don't pair up. Instead, they return to their own territories, and the female raises the eggs on her own.
• Hummingbird eggs are laid in pairs, and are the size of navy beans or half a jelly bean. Incubation takes 12 to 14 days. Hummingbird hatchlings grow so quickly that they are ready to leave the nest in about 3 weeks. The mother will continue to feed the babies for about 3 weeks after they have become airborne, while they learn to feed themselves. Mom will often raise 2 or even 3 broods per season before she leaves to migrate.
• -They are quite aggressive, and have been known to attack jays, crows and even hawks. Anna's will be aggressive at feeders especially, and chase other hummers away. You can lessen this problem by placing several feeders at opposite sides of your house.
• -There are insects that resemble hummers. They are hummingbird moths, or sphinx moths.
• -Hummingbirds live on average 2 to 5 years, although some have lived as long as 12.
• -If there is food and shelter, hummingbirds will winter over here.

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