I'm trying an alternative to messy, troublesome nectar feeders

I am gradually removing myself from feeding Hummingbirds via nectar feeders. I've had it with sticky counters, boiling pots, hungry ants, and artificial nectar that gets stale quickly in the Texas heat.

The artificial nectar does the job just fine. It's just too much mess and trouble. Besides, I'd rather feed Hummingbirds the natural way - the way nature has been doing it for thousands of years. With flowers.

In the last few years I've planted and encouraged several "masses" of colorful, native flowers. They're chock full of natural nectar which continuously refreshes itself. The nectar they produce has evolved to be in the perfect proportions. All I have to do is water it and fertilize it when it needs it (which is hardly ever). Hummingbirds love ‘em, and an added benefit is the bunches of butterflies.

For the record; my nectar masses (each at least 20 square feet) are Turks cap, Lantana and Mistflower. (Each mass is composed only of one species, except one has a tree in the middle). There are also Flame Acanthus, Spiderwort, Butterfly weed and Roughleaf Dogwood randomly growing in the yard. Being native, they all do fine in Texas' radical climate.

There are just two times when I’ll augment my flower masses with nectar feeders. One is early spring when Hummingbirds arrive in this area after an arduous migration. The other is late September, when Hummingbirds throng feeders to ”bulk up” for the long migration trip ahead.

 

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com

North Texas' night owls

Great-horned Owl

Owl’s ears are not at the same level on its head, and they face forward not to the side. This helps him (or her) locate prey easily at night (usually an unfortunate rodent). Also, those tufts on an owl’s head are not ears – just feathers. The Great-horned Owl is the largest in this area, but north Texas has many Screech Owls (which don’t make the familiar “hoot-hoot” sound) and are somewhat smaller.

The Barn Owl is another area owl. An adult Barn Owl kills and eats, on average, about five rats/mice each evening.

  

 

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com

 

How do hummingbirds get the energy for their high-octane lifestyle?.

 Hummingbirds’ “fighter-jet” acrobatics are as dazzling as their plumage, but the same physics that sets them apart exacts a steep price.

As the world's smallest birds, hummingbirds have a high surface-area-to-volume ratio. That means they lose a lot of heat through their skin. The problem is compounded by a lack of downy feathers, the fluffy insulation that keeps most birds warm. Skipping the down shaves weight, but the birds must compensate by refueling constantly, consuming two or three times their body weight every day. 

That's also why hummingbirds love nectar. They will visit multiple flowers in a short time, lapping up three to seven calories daily. That may seem like a trivial amount, but when scaled to the size of a human, it translates to about 155,000 calories a day. If the birds were any smaller, it would be physically impossible for them to eat enough to stay alive. As a result, hummingbirds are territorial. They stake out flowers and feeders, defending a food source at all costs—even at the cost of having a social life.

Unlike many other birds, hummers don’t gather in flocks (except when they concentrate near food); males and females don’t even raise their families together. Mating takes about half a second, after which the female zooms off to build a nest, lay eggs, incubate them, and raise the eggs/chicks by herself.

Because hummingbirds have such high metabolism, even sleep could prove fatal. Going for several hours without refueling could cause them to starve. Luckily, the birds have evolved an extreme solution: At night they enter a state of controlled hypothermia, slowing their breathing and heart rate and drastically lowering their body temperature to save energy. On a particularly frigid night, a hummingbird’s metabolism can drop as much as 95 percent.

Because the birds have few natural enemies, life expectancy is mostly determined by their own biology. Hummers age about 10 times faster than humans. They seem to have a high rate of heart attacks, ruptures, and strokes—not all that surprising given the fast pace of their lifestyle (up to 6.2 beats per second). If a hummingbird slows down, it dies; its existence leaves no room for laziness. You can help prolong their lives by having multiple feeders, full of fresh, clear nectar. Also, lots of native flowers such as cherry sage, turks cap, lantana and mistflower.  But, in the end, these birds essentially blow themselves out. 

CAN A MACHINE GET RID OF MOSQUITOES? The simple answer is “no”. That doesn’t stop manufacturers from making carefully-worded claims, however,

Bug zappers for instance. They use ultra-violet light to attract bugs, which are then electrocuted. They’ve been found to be totally ineffective in eliminating biting insects. Numerous studies show that less than one percent of the insects fried by zappers are biting insects. Many are “beneficial” bugs (which eat other bugs) like lacewings, ladybugs and dragonflies. It’s other things that attract biting insects such as mosquitoes, like carbon dioxide and ingredients in mammalian sweat.

We now have more elaborate and expensive machines, and fancier claims. New studies have shown these expensive machines are nearly as ineffective against mosquitoes as the old bug zappers. Much of what they destroy, in fact, are harmless insects that are food for insect-eating birds such as wrens, kinglets and swallows. Also, almost all birds need insects to feed to their young.

    The best mosquito defense that I know of (short of moving to the desert) is to have lots of birds and bats around. As I said, many birds eat mosquitoes (the purple martin is said to eat up to 2,000 a day!) The bats in the north Texas area (despite a horrible reputation thanks to Hollywood) can eat more than that!

  

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com

Discouraging “feeder hogs”

    Sometimes, certain bird species will dominate a feeder, crowding out or scaring away more desireable birds. So a frequent question is how to make the “hogs” go elsewhere while still feeding less aggressive birds.

Try removing the food the “feeder hogs” are looking for. To discourage Grackles, try feeding safflower. But to discourage House Finches, avoid safflower. To limit Crows and Doves, stop putting out cracked corn and bread. Discourage House Sparrows and Cowbirds with a seed mix containing no millet.  And in north Texas, never put any birdseed mix on ground, or use a mix containing milo; it’s rarely eaten – except by rodents. 
 

MOBS OF GRACKLES      Grackles are those large, ubiquitous, noisy, black birds that flock together by the hundreds in heavily-developed parts of this area. More accurately, they’re called Great-tailed Grackles; the huge flocks normally have other birds in them too – maybe Red-winged Blackbirds, Cowbirds or Common Grackles (other kinds of birds that aren’t put off by marginally-habitable or “urbanized” land).

It wasn’t always that way in Texas. Back in the early part of the 20^th century, Great-tailed Grackles were only found in the south Texas brush country and coastal prairie. By the 1920s, however, they had crept northward and were frequently seen around Austin. Then, by the 1950s, they had followed the human‘s “food trail” and had become established in the Dallas-Ft.Worth area.

 

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com

Have an edge when attracting hummingbirds

 

Hummingbirds will return to the same feeder year after year; hopefully that’s a feeder in your yard. So be sure to put a feeder in roughly the same location every year (you can add others elsewhere, of course).

 

Sometimes, giving your “feeder appeal” a little boost will help. Hang a colorful flower basket nearby! Fill it with vibrant red, orange and yellows. For the north Texas area, we recommend lantana or verbena. Or you could fasten about a foot of brightly-colored ribbon to the feeder itself.  Some feeders even have a hook for hanging a basket underneath. Once hummingbirds find your feeder -- they are hooked for years to come!

 LADYBUGS AND SO ON…    Just one domestic ladybug will eat as many as 50 aphids a day (aphids are small green bugs that can kill plants in a few days, and reproduce like crazy). Sometimes called lady-beetles, these beneficial insects control most bug problems (The Asian ladybug can sometimes be a nuisance, though).  Also beneficial, the larvae of the green lacewing devour thrips, spider mites, and whiteflies. We’ve used beneficial nematodes at home for years to control fleas in the dogs’ area. Put beneficial insects out at sunset so they can hide, and before hungry birds can get them.

 

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com

They’re here, or on the way (Hummingbirds)

 

A few lucky people in north Texas have seen hummingbirds.  More people will see more hummingbirds soon. So get feeders and nectar ready. (The best nectar is clear, and made of one part dissolved table sugar and five parts water)  Change it every week or so, depending on the weather.

·      Hummingbirds are found only in this hemisphere. North and South America only – there are zero in Europe, Asia, Australia or Africa.

·      The ruby-throated hummingbird has the least feathers of any bird; only 940 on average.

·      Forget the fables!  Hummingbirds are genetically attracted to ALL bright colors, except green; so they can spot food sources (flowers) in the wild.

·      Red dye in nectar has been proven to cause genetic harm in the tiny ceatuires.

 

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com

The trifecta !! Fire Ant control that's effective, safe and inexpensive.

Butchered crape myrtles

   As I write this, birds eat anxiously, and hardly a thought is given to the regular spring happenings. Spring will be here very soon, however. It’ll bring the nice stuff like flowers and warm days. But it will also bring fire ants.

Fire ant mounds erupt in unexpected and inconvenient places each spring. So, many homeowners rush to a store and buy anything that promises to kill fire ants (ANYTHING!), not realizing that it also damages/kills pets, children and wildlife (including birds). It’s poison!!

Instead, I mix up a natural, homemade mixture - one that’s very effective, safe and inexpensive: it costs about a tenth of the brand-name stuff on store shelves. 

 

I make a batch of the ”base” every year or so from ingredients sold at most hardware stores. What's more, it works....safely!.

I suggest a mixture of about 40% compost tea, 30% orange oil and 30% liquid horticultural molasses (mixed thoroughly). You can mix up a batch of this “base” now and keep it ready. When the time comes to eradicate a mound I take half a cup of this mixture, mix it with one gallon of water, and saturate the fire ant mound with it. Pour slowly to saturate the mound, and let it soak in – not run off. (I use a stick to quickly break through the mound’s crust.)

This doesn’t poison anything. Instead it instantly dissolves insects’ exoskeletons. In about 5 minutes there’s no ant activity at all. A few days later, I’ll add beneficial nematodes to the soil to control fire ants long term.

 

Why would you pay somebody   Pay to make a mess of your car?  Slash the upholstery, pound dents in the metal etc.? Same for butchering your crape myrtles.

 

There is absolutely NO proof that it does any good. Just the opposite in fact. Butchering can weaken the plant (since a lot of nutrition goes to heal the wounds) so the plant may get infested with bugs, get some disease, or simply die. That's why dozens and dozens of horticultarists and botanical organizations don't recommend butchering. Typically they don't suggest cutting any growth that's thicker than a pencil.

 

The only people butchering benefits is the person doing the butchering.

 

Owen Yost, in addition to blogging, is a Landscape Architect emeritus from here, who‘s worked in north Texas for over 30 years.  He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), International Society of Landscape Architects, the National BirdFeeding Society, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Native Plant Society of Texas. His design office is at northwestern68@yahoo.com