Saturday, August 28, 2010

A Whiz of hummingbirds

I have no idea what a group of hummingbirds is called but a "whiz" of them seems quite appropriate. These weeks of late summer mean the hummingbirds are gathering here on the Texas Gulf Coast getting ready for their fall migration to South and Central America. It also means that we refill our 3 hummingbird feeders very frequently. (I've never believed all the news items about how much sugar Americans eat because the numbers are bound to be skewed by all the sugar used by those of us who have hummingbird feeders...LOL). No matter how many feeders we put up, the little jewels spend all their time chasing each other away. I have also learned that they are curious--this morning my husband was eating cereal on the porch near one of the feeders and one little fellow came down almost face to face to check out who was too close to his feeder. I'll try to post a picture but they are really too fast for me. Darling little flying jewels!!
We are in the process of greatly expanding our butterfly / hummingbird garden. It is too late to be of any use to this year's birds but I hope to attract more next year. We have had great success with salvia for the hummingbirds; so much more salvia will be going in. Butterfly weed, Mexican heather, and that dratted Bee Balm are all going in the new area too. (I call it that dratted Bee Balm because it is so invasive but the bees, butterflies, and hummers love it so I just have to keep whacking it back.) Spanish lavender does well here although the English lavender does not; the bees love it and so do I.
That's what's going on around here.

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