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Hummingbird Attracting Discs, is yours out yet? (1 Viewer)

crickieheather said:
:( So, how do they find the ones with no activity? I know there are some hummers in my area (reported seen already), but I have none at my feeders so far. I had one feeder under the eaves of my apartment last August through november, visited by a female and a male, then later two juv. males and the female. It was a hanging feeder. I switched to a pair of Hummzingers in december. One is mounted on a post out from under the eaves, but in the same area. The other is window mouted on the other side of my apartment. They're both in quite visible locations, and should be much easier to see compared to last year's placement, but I still haven't seen one at all. Could it be that they remember where to go, and the ones that used my feeder last year aren't up yet?

I also read somewhere that red ribbons tied to the feeder will help. They flap in the breeze?
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Crickieheather:
First, before I answer your question, I want to make a distinction between red ribbons, red houses, red cars, etc. (used by a number of people) and a device deliberately designed to look like a feeder that offers the birds nothing. In my opinion, the latter is highly unethical.
There are a number of things I do not know that make answering your question difficult, but I can make some general statements. New feeders are found only by sight. Birds have very poor senses of smell, so any attempt to attract them must make use of their highly developed sense of sight. (by the way, because of that poorly developed sense of smell, buying fruit SCENTED (not the foods with real fruit in them) foods is making you feel good but doing nothing for the birds).
Hummingbird authors and feeders are unanimous on one point - big splashes of bright red color are a key to attracting these birds. You are clearly in an apartment. I would focus on hanging baskets of red flowers, NOT artificial flowers, red flower pots, red cushions on my furniture. I would not tie anything that is going to move with the wind to my feeders, but away from the feeders and where the birds could see it a red ribbon, red flags (even Old Glory) will help.
Keep the food fresh.
If you are in an urban area, you have a big strike against you known as the concrete jungle. ADVERTISE, but not deceptively.

Good birding
Mark
Bastrop, TX
 
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crickieheather: There's only so much you can do. The best feeders with the freshest nectar with the best attracting flowers nearby are useless if there are no birds in your area. Being in so. Calif., I have feeders up year-round, and I have traffic on at least one of my feeders most of the time. But I live in suburbia, and it's a big event to see three or more birds at a time, and lately even two at a time has been unusual. Other people in better locations get way more birds. To some extent, you just have to accept what nature gives you.
 
Curtis Croulet said:
crickieheather: There's only so much you can do. The best feeders with the freshest nectar with the best attracting flowers nearby are useless if there are no birds in your area. Being in so. Calif., I have feeders up year-round, and I have traffic on at least one of my feeders most of the time. But I live in suburbia, and it's a big event to see three or more birds at a time, and lately even two at a time has been unusual. Other people in better locations get way more birds. To some extent, you just have to accept what nature gives you.
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Wow Curtis. I never thought you had such a hummingbird depressed locale. Well, great answer. I need to learn to put it in that many words for some of those I get questions from deep in the jungle of Dallas and Houston.

Mark
 
My particular neighborhood seems to be in a hummer desert. I think it's the lack of natural habitat nearby (coastal sage scrub and chaparral in our region). There are other sites nearby with lots of hummingbirds, but they are surrounded by at least some native habitat. I know a guy in the mountains who has more hummingbirds than you can imagine, especially when Rufous/Black-chinned southbound migration is at its height in August. He uses six 96 oz P-P feeders, which he refills daily. His feeders are visible for literally miles in almost all directions. There's a restaurant at a highway junction below his home, and from the restaurant you can see the hummingbirds coming in from all around to go to his feeders. For myself, I don't get the big numbers, but I almost always have one or two. If I want to see big gobs of them, I know where to go.
 
I've been so shocked at how many hummers I get here in NE Arizona (coming from so Cal myself), living at 7,000 feet in conifer forest, i.e., no flowering plants except for the wildflowers that occur mid-late summer. Not the bazillions of birds the southern half of the state gets, especially SE AZ, but we'll get 60+ birds daily (four species: rufous, black-chinned, broad-tailed and calliope) at the busiest part of the season, running 3 feeders (hung under roof eaves) that have to be refilled twice daily. I don't even know why hummingbirds are at this elevation with so few native flowering plants -- lots and lots of tiny flying insects, though, during the summer -- but I'm sure glad they're here every year. They're just incredible little birds.
 
humminbird said:
Birds have very poor senses of smell, so any attempt to attract them must make use of their highly developed sense of sight. (by the way, because of that poorly developed sense of smell, buying fruit SCENTED (not the foods with real fruit in them) foods is making you feel good but doing nothing for the birds).
If you are in an urban area, you have a big strike against you known as the concrete jungle. ADVERTISE, but not deceptively.
Click to expand...

I find it somewhat funny that I mentioned nothing about fruit or scent in my post, but you thought to write a paragraph on it. :) I'm rather new to hummers, but not to birds in general. Did you know that parrots have no taste buds on thier tounges? They're actually located in the back of their throts. interesting, but not really important. :) Tangent!

Yes, I am in an apartment, but the current feeder is actually in a more visible spot than the one I had up last year. There aren't any red plants around here, not yet anyway. I have many plants going in now to help attract them. Butterfly bushes, four o' clocks, some Salvia, lots of red glads and daylillies. I even started some nice cardinal climbers on some trellises back in January. I won't put up anything fake to attract them.

I suppose I was mostly wondering aloud if hummers remember where food sources are located. If the female, male, and two juv. males remember mine from last year, would they show up again? Or will anything that shows up here be just out of luck that they flew over and saw it?
 
I don't know if there's any experimental evidence that hummingbird remember feeder locations, but it appears to me that they do remember locations from day to day and even from season to season. I've seen them look for feeders that are no longer hanging in places where they were hanging last year -- or so it appears to me. It's common practice when banding to take down all feeders but those inside the traps, and hummingbirds will continue to look for the missing feeders.
 
Katy Penland said:
I've been so shocked at how many hummers I get here in NE Arizona (coming from so Cal myself), living at 7,000 feet in conifer forest...
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Katy, roughly where are you? We own a piece of undeveloped property in Apache Co., halfway between Show Low and Concho. The elevation is about 6600 ft. It's out on the Plateau. The vegetation is pinion, juniper and sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata). I've often wondered what kind of hummers might visit there. I've always assumed there'd be Black-chins and Broad-tails, but I know Magnificents supposedly range up to the Mogollon Rim, and I've wondered if they get any further north, at least on occasion.
 
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crickieheather said:
I find it somewhat funny that I mentioned nothing about fruit or scent in my post, but you thought to write a paragraph on it. :) I'm rather new to hummers, but not to birds in general. Did you know that parrots have no taste buds on thier tounges? They're actually located in the back of their throts. interesting, but not really important. :) Tangent!
Click to expand...

Actually, it is not all that much of a tangent, and the discussion was not about taste so much as smell. Many people seem to think these guys can find food sources by smell when they can not. You do have a point though - a VERY significant part of the ability to taste is the ability to smell!

Regarding fruit, many people will put out fruit to attract both hummingbirds and butterflies. It does work.

Yes, as Curtis said, there is no direct evidence that hummingbirds "remember" where feeders were found, but there is plenty of annecdotal evidence. One bander tells of being able to predict not only the day, but the hour that she will catch a certain hummingbird in a certain trap each year.

mark
Bastrop
 
Curtis Croulet said:
I know a guy in the mountains who has more hummingbirds than you can imagine, especially when Rufous/Black-chinned southbound migration is at its height in August. He uses six 96 oz P-P feeders, which he refills daily. His feeders are visible for literally miles in almost all directions. There's a restaurant at a highway junction below his home, and from the restaurant you can see the hummingbirds coming in from all around to go to his feeders. For myself, I don't get the big numbers, but I almost always have one or two. If I want to see big gobs of them, I know where to go.
Click to expand...

Sounds familiar. I know a family in the Davis Mountains of Texas that last year had decreased their feeding by the weekend of the Festival there - they were only running I believe he said 115 feeders at that point. It is amazing to sit on their back deck and listen to the birds buzzing about you - you do more listening than looking because you can't possibly take it all in! Last year, at that location, in three hours I saw Black-chinned, Ruby-throated, Magnificent, Rufous, Allens, Anna's, Lucifer, Broad-tailed, Broad-billed, Calliope. Wonderful sites in dem dere mountains! Your place in AZ sounds like it could be a Meca!

Mark
 
Curtis Croulet said:
Katy, roughly where are you? We own a piece of undeveloped property in Apache Co., halfway between Show Low and Concho. The elevation is about 6600 ft. It's out on the Plateau. The vegetation is pinion, juniper and sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata). I've often wondered what kind of hummers might visit there. I've always assumed there'd be Black-chins and Broad-tails, but I know Magnificents supposedly range up to the Mogollon Rim, and I've wondered if they get any further north, at least on occasion.
Click to expand...
I'm the other direction, roughly halfway between Show Low and Payson in Overgaard (Navajo Cty).

Wow, I'd die to have a Magnificent but never have here. My Annotated Checklist (1981), which still lists it as "Rivoli's" hummer, says it's been found on the Rim, notably "since about 1973 has been found north and west to Greer, White Mountains... and west to Flagstaff..." and "several times in extreme southwestern Utah." Sounds like it would be only a matter of circumstance for you to see them on your property in Concho. Some Audubon friends used to live in Concho, I'll ask them if they've ever had Magnificent at their place.

When I do the USFS neotropic migrant surveys in May/June, I hear/see Broad-tails at almost every waypoint of all 3 routes, which cover a 30+-mile line of the Rim itself. The Calliope is the least common in my yard, and last year I never did get one at all -- but overall hummer numbers were waaaaay down last season, too, to the point I never did need to put up the 3rd feeder.
 
Here in Temecula we've had Anna's (95% of what we see), Costa's, Black-chinned and Rufous. We've never seen a Calliope, but sightings in so. Calif. lowlands have all been in April, so this month gives us another chance.
 
Best of luck on that! When I saw our first Calliope, even before I saw the streaky, elongated gorget, its overall smaller size than the other three spp was obvious, making it easy to pick out on those perched at the feeder. It was also much shier than the rest, preferring to wait in a nearby juniper until there were fewer birds around before coming to the feeder. But once there, unless it got a direct hit from a male or female "ruthless," it would stand its perch against all comers. Don't think I have a decent photo of it, either. Yet. ;)
 
Katy, somehow I think we had this Overgaard/Show Low discussion last year. Sorry, I'm 60, and sometimes my memory slips.
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Edited to add: We chatted about this Sep 29, 2004.
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Chances of a Calliope in migration here are really quite small. Most seem to be recorded from the immediate coast (we're 25 miles inland). In fact, a Broad-tail would probably be at least as likely as a Calliope. Several are reported from so. Calif. every year, and the banders we've worked with get one or two every year.
 
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Two more weeks and I'll be in SE Arizona, hummingbird capital of the U.S. I'll check in to all the "canyons" and hope to go to Portal, on the east side of the Chiricahuas.

Kathy, what kind of clothing can I expect to wear this time of year. Should I bring rain gear? Elevation will be about 4000 - 5000 ft.
 
Let me ask some people who live in that part of the state and will get back to you. When I was in the SE in February a couple years ago, we had everything from hot days to foggy, cool mornings to strong afternoon wind. Rain's not in the extended forecast right now, but let me see what I can find out.
 
wings: be prepared for anything. You might also contact Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory (i.e., Sheri Wiliamson & Tom Wood) for info.
 
Hi, Wings,

The consensus coming back to me is almost verbatim what Curtis said: To be prepared for any type of weather. Temps in Tucson are from the mid-70s into high-80s for the next 10 days, but that's in a valley, not up in any of the canyons or Chiricahuas.

Would urge you to subscribe to or check in on the AZ-NM Bird listserve every day as there have been some recent mentions of canyon closures or delays due to construction, weather (mud/rock slides/flooding), etc. It's also THE best list for hearing about rarities, migrants, and other bird-related stuff for the SE part of Arizona. Invaluable, in fact.

http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/AZNM.html
 
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