Our Hummingbird is Back!

Our little grey hummingbird is back! We made the mistake of going to Northern Minnesota for 10 days, leaving the hummingbird feeder as is. (It is one of those auto-feeders with the pre-made food from the local pet store).

The instructions with our feeder noted that we need not change the food until the feeder is empty. Well, that is not correct. The result was that our hummingbird had to get her nectar elsewhere, as the food went bad while it was exposed to the Texas sun.

Be careful. Here are a couple of tips we tried that have worked to keep the hummingbird nectar fresh: We changed to Mills Brothers Hummingbird Food, a dry nectar mix, and can now choose to make less at a time. Also, we have changed the location of her feeder to the shade. Thus, our hummingbird will not have to worry about her food going bad again.

However, for homemade feeders and nectar, the food needs to be changed every two days.

We think that our hummingbird is here to stay this summer, as she appears to be a ruby-throated hummingbird, which migrate to Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah from Mexico, where they spend the winter. Here is a photograph that looks a bit like her.



Above photo of Anna's Hummer in Flight was taken by Noel Zia Lee of Flickr. Some rights reserved. Photo to the right of Ruby-Throated Hummingbird was taken by Ktratboy of Flickr. Some rights reserved.