Birds.
John Bryan (Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:12:59 PDT)

Dear Jim:

Thanks for your e-mail. We have several different species of Humming
Birds here, all so lovely and they are apparently not afraid of humans,
or my dog either.

I have not seen any go after Lilies, despite having various trumpets in
my garden, and despite the flowers having good nectar glands, I do not
know why this is, could it be too sweet for them? My 'Lucifer' are young
plants, a few minor spikes, but they were planted this year and not that
many flowers, so perhaps that is why they are ignored. Cheers, John E.
Bryan

Jim McKenney wrote:

The replies posted so-far are interesting, if only because it seems that the
west-coast hummers are either much pickier than those here on the east coast
- or maybe it's that they have so much more to pick from on the west coast.

The hummer we have here is the ruby-throated hummingbird. They arrive in
late April, just when the native Aquilegia canadensis starts to bloom. There
are hummers in the area until well into October, although these late season
birds may be birds migrating through from farther north. In the same way,
the first ones to arrive in April may really be the ones headed for Canada.

On rare occasions (but almost every year) rufous hummingbirds are reported
form somewhere on the east coast. These are evidently birds which became
disoriented during migration.

The ruby throat seems to check out everything in the garden. I'm surprised
that no one has mentioned how much attention hummers pay to lilies,
especially trumpet lilies. Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is also a favorite. So too
glads, Tigridia, Gloriosa, Zephyranthes, Habranthus, Polianthes - really,
they seem to check out just about anything in bloom.

Forget what you may have read about hummers going mainly to red flowers.

From what I can see, flower color makes no difference.

Jim McKenney
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where although we have
hummers every year from sometime in April till sometime in October, we never
seem to have more than one or two at a time.
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