Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire First hummingbird today

The one thing you do NOT use ti fill the feeder is any of those commercial hummingbird food mixes. They're mostly food coloring and may even be a bit toxic to hummies.

Use a simple mix of boiled water and cane (table) sugar, mixed one part sugar to four parts water. No red dye. I make a gallon at a time and keep the extra stuff refrigerated. If it starts to turn milky or has bug debris in it when it's in the feeder, dump it. Then clean the feeder and refill. I use an ounce or so of white vinegar to clean my feeders, rinsing well. Only at the end of the season do I use bleach.

What Rocky said, but in a pinch I’ve used the commercial stuff.

Mom makes it that way.
Makes her suet to.
Crazy bird lady loves the hummingbirds.

these have bright yellow. and a little larger than a sparrow.

Better get on Audubon and other websites and make a report if Roger sees one of those tri-colored BBs in South Texas!

Roger, many times the blackbirds only show the red patch, the yellow stays hidden.

Did you get your "fix" yet?


Oh, our Violet Green swallows are back according to the wife. So I go out to feed the quail and jays this morning, and there's the hummingbird feeder hanging on its hook. No hummers yet, my wife just figured with the swalllows shoeing up, she might as well be prepared.

no, she has class today, working on a degree in communications and something else. A&M Kingsville.

Well then,

I guess you have to take the matter into your own hands then.

Wasp dont dig spent anti freeze.
They are smarter than tweaker humming birds on a sugar binge....




P.S.
Dont let Slumlord fool you guys with these threads.
He is into the Hummingbird stuff just like you guys.


No matter what he says or tries to spin what I'm saying.
He is a hummingbird brother with you guys.

Birdy:
I did back hand the fugg outta one bugging me incessantly turkey hunting like I told you.
But I didnt vaporize him with a turkey shell like I led you to believe several yrs ago.
I fessed up that fib to ya after 2 yrs of posting about it.
But it was fun jerking your chain about supposedly vaporizing one....
Boom!!!!!
Puff the magic hummingbird.
Deconstructed into base elements....


LOL!!!

Saw my first Hummingbird Friday (24th) . . .Female Ruby Throated. Stopped at my nectar feeder that has been out since this thread started.

Dunno how I missed this thread.

Anyhoo.... I’ve been watching winds over the Gulf on the Windy website. North winds had been unusually prevalent over the Yucatán/East Coast of Mexico most of last week. Gotta figure fifty million songbirds a day wanting to cross the Gulf second half of April/first week of May. Contrary winds are like stopping up the flow, creating a backlog.

Friday into Friday night strong south winds over the Yucatán woulda pushed a kazillion songbirds into launching out over open water, two thirds of their way here on Saturday northeast winds over the northern Gulf would put them in crisis. When you’re cruising at 25 -35 mph a 15 to 20 mph headwind will slow ya right down. Presume a bunch ran outa gas and went down over the Gulf.

I figured survivors would be pushed west by those northeast winds and make landfall northern Mexico/South Texas.

Holy crap, I went down to Corpus/Port A Saturday. INUNDATED with birds. Chuck-wills-widows and whippoorwills practically in every tree. Hordes of Baltimore Orioles, indigo and painted buntings, bunch of different kinds of warblers, Swainson’s thrushes, catbirds, ruby-throated hummingbirds.

Each such occasion is like a snapshot of what was over the Gulf that day, every species migrating on its own particular timetable. One species I always look for is scarlet tanagers because they’re just gorgeous. Ordinarily I would expect to see maybe one a year. Friday musta been a big push of Scarlets over the Gulf because on Saturday I saw more scarlet tanagers in one day than I’ve seen in my whole life up to this point, they were everywhere.

The effect is most pronounced on the dry barrier islands like at Port A where desperate songbirds will pitch into any patch of low cover where they make landfall and then try to feed all day while waiting for the north winds to shift. Birds coming from the forests of Central and South America headed for our own forests, packed into low bush and scrub along the beach.

Survivors will be arriving up north in two or three weeks, racing against time and each other. They gotta set up territories, breed, replace all or most of their feathers and then hurry the fugg back south again to repeat the cycle. Survivorship in any given year runs about 50%

Rene, I ain’t gonna judge, what happened with that hummingbird is between you and God. Poor little guy, survived crossing the Gulf at least twice, only to run into some guy in the woods with PTSD and a shotgun

Iphones suck for bird pics but here ya go, scarlet tanager, blue wing warblers, nashville warblers, chipping sparrows, indigo and painted puntings and ovenbirds in this one patch...



Can't hardly see 'em in the pic but there were about twenty catbirds and one mourning warbler in this one dead bush....



These guys cracked me up. What ya do is put out cut half oranges and fresh water and then sit and wait. IIRC a girl was out there for most of a day and saw eighty-plus species pass through that single grove of trees.

Had the first visual sighting of this year last week of a ruby throat feeding from wife's feeder. Nectar isn't going down very fast though so there must not be very many passing through my area yet. Numbers vary from year to year but we generally get rose breasted buntings every year and occasionally a few indigo buntings passing through and stopping to feed from wife's feeders, too.

Saw my first Hummingbird here about two weeks ago. It was when the campfire was down a few days and I could not post the sighting. Promptly forgot to post until I saw this. miles

Hummingbirds are arriving here in mass lately here in East Texas. We had some Painted and Indigo Bunting as well as some others. Blue Jays and several species of sparrows. For Hummingbird feeders a cheap Wally World simple feeder does well. It's just a plastic tube about 2" around and 5"tall with four ports. Comes apart in three pieces so it's easy to clean. The fancy feeders do not work well and some not at all. Feeders with bottle necks are a PITA to fill. Some feeders are too deep for their beaks to feed in. Some feeders are designed to starve them and aggravate us I guess.

Our first Hummer showed up here on April 20th. Two days earlier then last year.

My first ruby-throated hummingbird of the year was today. I've had my feeders out for about a month waiting on them. I sure have been looking forward to them coming back!

Had a couple of hummers two weeks ago. Nothing at my feeders since. I’m thinking they may be a little late due to freeze. Most of the plants they feed on here froze. Hasbeen

My first one just stopped into the feeder today. Couple days earlier than last year. Man was she thirsty!

Could be today. They've been spotted just south of here a couple days ago.

Our first sighting was Tuesday. Filled the feeders yesterday.

Bluegrass area of Kentuck.