For several weeks now the hummers have been flitting through our citrus trees enjoying the wonderfully fragrant blossoms. We began to worry about them though as the blossoms are dropping and being replaced by baby oranges and such. We got out our feeders and decided to sue the red store bought nectar the first filling to make it easy for them to find the feeders and get used to them before dropping back to our home made sugar water. All they gonna get is one dose of the stuff though it cost us 5$ for nectar for 2 feeders and that was the dollar store stuff. Don't mean to sound cheap but 5$ would buy enough Domino sugar to last them all summer. I am sure it wont be long till they are buzzing the feeders and then I can get some pictures or video. Any of you getting some hummers around yet. We always wait to put the feeders up when hte citrus is blooming cause they prefer the citrus anyways.
Cappy, so glad you mentioned this! We've had a couple of hummingbirds since March 23, but just lately we've had more show up. We feed them home-made syrup, and they also have flowers to feed on. Here are three of our most recent photos:
I should dig out and clean my hummer feeder. I saw one or two last year but didnt get around to putting it out for them. I <3 hummingbirds
Wonderful photos and I know how hard they are to catch. We use home made too but we decided for first filling we would do the red stuff to help attract them. We know the home made is much better for them but thought this would help them zero in on the feeders. They have been flitting through the citrus for a month or so. Now that we have more baby citrus than blooms time to feed.
I broke the nozzle to my bottle feeder today. So no nectar till I get a replacement. Sorry hummingbirds.
I put one out the first of May or when I see the earliest flowers starting to blossom. When I see one then I put out a second feeder. I always make my own syrup for them as my feeders are red.
It's possible that this "red" thing was made up by hummingbird nectar manufacturers! I've seen hummingbirds feeding on the white salvia greggii, light pink pavonia, and mealy blue sage. Perhaps the red catches their attention, and once here they sample all the offerings.
We have gone to using cheap plastic dollar store feeders. they are 3$ a piece at the dollar store, last a couple years, and work well. Actually we are scared we are a little late. They have been buzzing the citrus trees for a month now and the flowers have mostly fallen off. We usually pay more attention but it has been so very wet and rainy we haven't been out in the back yard much this soggy spring.