Happy hummers

The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are back and, from our own experience at least, there are plenty of them.

For years, Sally and I have had hummingbird feeders of various kinds, and always got a modest showing of Ruby-throats. Last year, because of some modifications to our house, we did not have our usual feeding station.

This year, we decided to try something new: Feeders hanging from windows, one in the kitchen (where we’ve never had one before) and one in the bedroom (which had been our traditional location).

While thumbing through a Kinsman Garden Company catalogue last winter, I noticed “super suction hangers.” “Bring your hummingbird feeders right up to your window glass and enjoy a super close-up view, with this high quality suction hanger,” Kinsman said.

Our previous feeders were hung from steel swing arms mounted solidly to the house. The catalogue said the suction hangers could safely handle feeders (or small plants) up to three pounds. They were only $6.95 so I ordered two.

I wanted some equally affordable feeders, and checked the master maker of hummingbird feeders: Perky-Pet (an odd name for a company specializing in wild bird feeders). There, among more than 50 (!) hummingbird feeders, I found Model 211, a plastic unit holding eight ounces and costing a mere $6.99. (Model 201 costs only $5.99, but it holds 18 ounces, which, in our territory is too much – more on that below).

So in April, I hung both feeders, one on a kitchen window 10 feet from the ground – it’s raised and lowered with a line – and one on the bedroom bay window, which can be reached by a crank-open side window. We waited a couple weeks, sighting only a couple of male hummers stopping on their way north. Then suddenly last week, the females arrived.

Now from before dawn till dusk, we have hummingbirds visiting both feeders. Often two show up at once and one winds up chasing the other away – typical territorial behavior. Having two feeders at different sides of the house may allow two females to set up nearby nesting territories and each to have the convenient food source.

The window mounts let us to observe all this activity as close as a foot or two away. The small expense – about $30 for two feeders and mounts – is well worth the entertainment these birds provide.

Don’t waste your money on special hummingbird mixes or nectars. Many commercial products use red dye – mostly as a sales gimmick. A red feeder, often with yellow around its openings, is all that is needed to attract hummingbirds; red fluid is unnecessary.

To make your own effective, inexpensive nectar, mix a quarter cup of white sugar with a cup of water. (Do not use brown sugar, honey or other sweeteners.)

Some people recommend boiling the water from public supplies to reduce the amount of chlorine – not a problem if you’re on a well.

Change the nectar every few days; in hot weather, even sooner. Potentially harmful bacteria can grow in the solution if left to “ferment” in the sun.

In the East, where there is only one species of hummingbird, feeders holding a small volume of nectar are more practical than big ones. Two or three hummers won’t consume 18 ounces in three or four days, the safe life of the nectar. They probably can’t even handle eight ounces. Out West, where there are many species that are probably not fighting each other for territories, feeders can serve many birds at a time and tend to empty more quickly.

Perky-Pet has a little three-ounce feeder that I will also try. Model 215P costs only $5.99 and is designed to be hung in planters.

Bird Watcher’s Digest has an excellent online guide to hummingbirds, including an extensive collection of “frequently asked questions.” Visit birdwatchersdigest.com, look for “Backyard birds” on the green menu bar, and select “hummingbirds.”

Ash yellows

For folks with White Ash trees, early May can be a nail-biting time as they wait and wait for the leaves to appear.

Ashes are one of the last native trees to leaf out in the spring. Many are still not out yet.

But ash owners aware of the “ash yellows” are particularly anxious to see leaves in the hopes that this deadly disease has not struck their tree. The result could be a hulk costing many hundreds of dollars to remove.

Ash yellows is a protoplasma, a kind of parasitic bacteria possibly transmitted by beetles, that attacks ashes and can kill them as in as quickly as one year – an amazing feat, considering White Ash may be anywhere from 50 to 100 feet tall, with up to a five foot diameter trunk.

One sign of a diseased tree are “witches’ brooms,” spindly clusters of leaves amid limbs that are otherwise leafless (see picture)

No one knows for sure how it spreads or exactly how it works, and no one has a way of preventing ashes from catching it.

But by now, if your ash has avoided infection, at least leaf buds should be appearing. If not, better plan on calling a tree crew.

Save the wood, though – ash is great in the fireplace.

Treetop visitors

Spring’s leafless trees are a far cry from Shakespeare's bare ruined choirs of winter. Where late the sweet birds sang is springing to life with song. Those branches are the hotels and summer homes of countless migrants.

The earliest of the tree flowers are blooming. Where there are flowers, there are usually insects. And where “bugs” are, birds are sure to follow. In fact, insects drawn to the early-flowering trees are important food for warblers, tanagers and other small migrants heading north in the weeks to come. Some will stop here to nest for the summer while many others eat and run, heading farther north.

For bird watchers the leafless limbs of early spring are a blessing. The scores of colorful arrivals are much easier to spot without lots of green blocking the view.

So instead of watching spring arrive on the thermometer, dust off the binoculars and point them to the passing parade of treetop visitors.

Why this weed is a winner

Got one of those March colds? In the old days, you might have turned to a March weed for help.

Many roadsides will soon be lined with Coltsfoot, a wildflower whose bright yellow blooms are often mistaken for dandelions.

Although it’s colorful and among the earliest and hardiest of the spring wildflowers, Coltsfoot was imported from Europe not for its beauty, but for its alleged abilities as a cough medicine. Its generic name, Tussilago, means “cough dispeller,” and for centuries its juices were used like Pertussin or Robitussin (notice those coughing “tusses”) from the drug store. Ailing New England children in the 19th Century were fed Coltsfoot drops, made of plant extract and sugar.

Don’t do it today, however. Modern research suggests ingesting Coltsfoot may cause liver tumors.

Instead, enjoy Coltsfoot for a different characteristic. The import has adapted to some of the worst soils North America can offer. The most likely place to see it is in within a foot or two of highway pavement – soil permeated with winter sand and salt, oils from asphalt and cars, and, yes, litter.

If there’s a terrain in need of beautifying, it’s our roadsides, especially in spring when we are hungry for outdoor color. This post-winter weed is a winner.

Intercalation

Yes, it’s a leap year and Friday is leap day, but why are we all leaping?

“Leap” means many things – mostly to do with jumping or bounding – but none seems to relate to Feb. 29, when we attach that quadrennial day to the calendar. In fact, adding Feb. 29 would seem to delay the leap from February – the worst month weatherwise in the year – to March, the most hopeful month, the one in which spring begins.

A century-old edition of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary fails to clarify the issue. In explaining “leap year,” it offers: “The name may refer to the fact that in the bissextile year, any fixed festival after February falls on the next week-day but one to that on which it fell in the preceding year, not on the next week-day as usual.” Back when feast days meant more to people than they do today, that sentence probably quickly made sense.

Perhaps we can be thankful that, for whatever reason, we call it leap day. Its other name is more of a mouthful: intercalary day.

Yet, intercalary day makes a lot more sense. It simply means to insert something – like a day – into a calendar.

And intercalating is exactly what we do Friday.

The humble Valentine

While many of us may suspect that St. Valentine’s Day was invented by the modern greeting card, flower and candy industries, the holiday is ancient – and unsaintly.

More than 2,000 years ago, Romans celebrated Lupercalia, a fertility feast that included ceremonies in which men drew women by lots. When the early Christian church tried to “depaganize” Roman feasts, it turned this one into a festival of love in which people drew the names of saints instead of women. It was named for St. Valentine, probably because his feast day roughly coincided with the mid-February celebration of Lupercalia. The priest had been beaten and beheaded around Feb. 14, 270, for practicing Christianity.

By the 19^th Century the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day in England, at least, was not unlike today’s. One British author wrote in 1873: “The approach of the day is now heralded by the appearance in the printsellers’ shop windows of vast numbers of missives calculated for use on this occasion, each generally consisting of a single sheet of post paper, on the first page of which is seen some ridiculous coloured caricature of the male or female figure, with a few burlesque verses below.” These, the writer adds, are employed chiefly by “the humbler classes.”

So have a humble – but happy – Valentine’s Day!

Delightful warnings

Red sky in morning, Sailors’ warning.
Red sky at night, Sailors’ delight.

The ancient adage may have developed from maritime experience, but it’s based on sound science – at least in this part of the world, where most weather systems move from west to east. Just last Friday, a blood-red dawn presaged a day of rain and, in my home town, messy ice.

A red sky in the morning occurs when clouds arrive from the west and the sky to the east is clear. As the sun rises, billions of dust particles in the otherwise clear atmosphere bend the solar light to the red spectrum, causing the edge of the cloud front to glow. More moisture in the air yields richer reds. Often the clouds signal bad weather, perhaps just rain or snow, but maybe the wind, too.

A red sky at night means the sun’s setting rays are passing through hundreds of miles of cloudless atmosphere, weather that’s heading our way and promising a sunny day tomorrow.

Whether delighted or forewarned, we should pause to enjoy either sky’s ephemeral light show, bursting with brilliance that countless artists have pursued and none has ever really captured.