Hummingbird Central, so much fun!

Hummingbirds close up

These little critters have been our entertainment for the summer. I love to hear the hummingbird chatter in the garden.We worked hard to coddle them. It has taken several years to get to this point, but this has really turned out to be the pay off year. Over the last few years I have collected and cultivated flowers that attract hummingbirds.(Red Salvia, Morning Glories, Purple Petunias, Lavender++) I have experimented with different feeders and have been dogged in making sure the feeders were full of food and were put out at the right time of year.  I feed them until one sad morning in the fall, they are   G O N E....flown off to the south for the winter.  It is really a disappointing, time. We patiently wait for spring to start the cycle again.

hummingbird at sunset meal

All my efforts have come to fruition this summer. Mr has been very influential in building the population this year. I was away for two weeks and he took over my feeding duties. He was even more dutiful than I.  He filled my all of my three feeders more often than once a day. This really seems to have brought us even more customers. In my time away I believe my hummers had fledglings that emerged and joined the frenzy at the feeders. Whatever the reason, this summer's crew has been just plain awesome. My dream several years ago was to have two or three birds coming regularly so I could see them up close and study them.  We now have well over thirty or so coming daily. We have observed at least twenty there at one time and we have photographed them with movies and snapshots. Those photographs validate our numbers. I will share some of those photos here, I am sure you will enjoy them. They are just delightful....this is my mediation. They never cease to awe. Credit where credit is due, Mr took the large snapshots, his camera has a much better zoom than mine!

I will write more about these lovely creatures over the next few days, so if you are interested please return here, or consider joining this blog as a follower ( see the gadget to the left side on the home page) and you will get a note when there is a new entry to see. I plan to post some great hummingbird photos and to discuss the feeders we have experimented with, and our observations about those feeders. See you then!

more hummer postings at:  http://shoresidefarmhouse.blogspot.com/p/birds-bird-feeding-bird-watching-and.html

hummingbirds swarm for dinner