A good measure to attract wildlife to human dwellings is to place food stuff for it. Planting bushes, annuals and trees with red tubular flowers are a good general measure to attract hummers and butterflies, however when it comes to exotics, this may be another story.
We love birds and as a wildlife private reserve manager and naturalist part of my work is habitat improvement for its wildlife. The owners of the state love landscaping and gardening and they do their own work on the grounds. I started to work for them in 2001 and found that most of the garden was full of exotic plants, some of which were great to bring in hummers like the heliconias for Hermits. However, little did I know that the Australian Bottle Brush, a member of the gum family, was going to be used as part of the landscaping.
Well it has bunches of red-tubular red flowers. As it turned out none of our venezuelan animals knew about the bush and they stayed cleared away from it for 3 years!! Then, I was surprised to see a single Blue–tailed Emerald lady visiting its flowers early in the morning. As the day heated up we had a sudden flush of yellow sulphur butterflies going crazy on the flowers. It was as if they had learned from the hummer, yes you may visit this red flowers...they are not toxic or dangerous!. After that Banana Quits took to the plant and now the bush gets visited by hummers, banana quits, yellow rumped casiques, yellow and trourpial orioles, tanagers and other insects.
There is an order of arrival: birds early in the morning ( the flowers may have accumulated nectar and isects over night), butterfies from 10:00 till abou 13:00 when is warm enough for them to fly but not hot enough to die! And our Blue- Tailed Emeralds ... well, they spend most of the day fighting and defending their tree from their peers and other birds. It is interesting to note how interspecif knowledge about food sources works in nature. How it takes one animal to figure out a food sourse befores others use it and how resourse exploitation allows for a pecking order where animals learn the proper time to visit the food sourse in order to get the most for their visit. I am sure that is how us humans learned what was eatable. We may have observed what other creatures ate befores we tried some food items.
So if you want to attract hummers and other animals to your place try working with the local food stuff first, and then plant your exotics for looks. Mind you that animals lear where their food sources are, the time to visit them and their abundance. So in habitat improvement one most plan accordingly it is one hell of a responsibility to manipulate wildlife behavior.
Regards
Leopoldo Garcia / Venezuela
We love birds and as a wildlife private reserve manager and naturalist part of my work is habitat improvement for its wildlife. The owners of the state love landscaping and gardening and they do their own work on the grounds. I started to work for them in 2001 and found that most of the garden was full of exotic plants, some of which were great to bring in hummers like the heliconias for Hermits. However, little did I know that the Australian Bottle Brush, a member of the gum family, was going to be used as part of the landscaping.
Well it has bunches of red-tubular red flowers. As it turned out none of our venezuelan animals knew about the bush and they stayed cleared away from it for 3 years!! Then, I was surprised to see a single Blue–tailed Emerald lady visiting its flowers early in the morning. As the day heated up we had a sudden flush of yellow sulphur butterflies going crazy on the flowers. It was as if they had learned from the hummer, yes you may visit this red flowers...they are not toxic or dangerous!. After that Banana Quits took to the plant and now the bush gets visited by hummers, banana quits, yellow rumped casiques, yellow and trourpial orioles, tanagers and other insects.
There is an order of arrival: birds early in the morning ( the flowers may have accumulated nectar and isects over night), butterfies from 10:00 till abou 13:00 when is warm enough for them to fly but not hot enough to die! And our Blue- Tailed Emeralds ... well, they spend most of the day fighting and defending their tree from their peers and other birds. It is interesting to note how interspecif knowledge about food sources works in nature. How it takes one animal to figure out a food sourse befores others use it and how resourse exploitation allows for a pecking order where animals learn the proper time to visit the food sourse in order to get the most for their visit. I am sure that is how us humans learned what was eatable. We may have observed what other creatures ate befores we tried some food items.
So if you want to attract hummers and other animals to your place try working with the local food stuff first, and then plant your exotics for looks. Mind you that animals lear where their food sources are, the time to visit them and their abundance. So in habitat improvement one most plan accordingly it is one hell of a responsibility to manipulate wildlife behavior.
Regards
Leopoldo Garcia / Venezuela
Last edited:
