NEW FEEDER IN ELLIS’ GARDEN
LT COL NOEL ELLIS
22/X/2024
Birds have been a source of our joy. Their chirping and singing adds melody to the day's proceedings. Even their distant calls add a musical note to the natures choir. We wanted to do something more for them.
Hummingbirds are one species who have been regular visitors to our garden. Some have even nested in our garage. They have fought, played, frolicked, and multiplied. We feel blessed.
Flowers, especially hibiscus are ‘irresistible’ to them for nectar. Plants in the garden attract insects which also is a meal for many birds. We serve rotis to add some variety and change of taste. Later, we added a grain feeder to entice them. Small birds attracted ‘birds of prey’. So, there is an assortment of birds visiting us and increasing by the day. The ruckus in the garden is a testimony to it.
One day, while surfing on an online portal, I came across a ‘hummingbird feeder’. One had to fill it with a sugar solution of 25:75 of sugar & water. The feeder has four holes on the flanks from where the birds are supposed to suck out the ‘homemade nectar’.
These feeders were not available in India, so I requested our relatives coming from the US to bring them along and they did. I am so grateful to them for that. The red coloured feeder looked so vibrant that it would attract the birds for sure was my gut feeling.
Having watched some YouTube videos on the method of preparing the sugar solution and feeding the hummingbirds, which was the basic motivation to try out this at home. Another reason was to photograph them in action to hone my photography skills. In the videos I watched they hover around the feeder. To freeze that moment in time was the aim. This feeder would give me an ideal opportunity to do that.
Preparations to attract hummingbirds to the garden started in early monsoon. We planted the hummingbird vine. The creeper was trained to climb on the garage roof and it started attracting them once it started flowering. So, they were familiar with the vine already.
That is where the best place for placing the feeder for them was. The parts were assembled together. Then a ‘degchi’ and ‘white sugar’ was ‘pinched’ from the kitchen and a sugar solution was prepared and poured into the feeder.
The garden now looked much better with this new contraption hanging at the entrance under the garage shade.
By breakfast time we heard them singing and trying to fathom what this new apparatus was all about. Their apprehension to sip or not to sip was palpable. One hummingbird landed on it and sounded the bugle of a new food source. The whole flock of about five or six of them responded immediately. The urge to check it out was so strong that they tried it out without wasting time.
How did they know that there is a sweet syrup in the feeder? Was it the smell? For me, it was an odourless solution. How did they know where to put their beak to sip the sweet solution? This one had an answer as there was a nice looking bright coloured yellow flower placed on the sides.
The packing box of the feeder contained a stick which could screw through those holes. Logic says that if sugar crystallizes and blocks those holes, they can be punctured by this stick. How thoughtful of the makers.
Within an hour of hanging the feeder they were swarming all over it, like we kids used to do when we got a new toy.
Sugar, which we had stopped using for health reasons, will now be part of our ‘rations’ every month again, just for our loving hummingbirds.
May the birds enjoy the new feeder and may they bring more hummingbirds home. Would they nest in our garage once again? I wonder!!!!!!!
JAI HIND
©® NOEL ELLIS
Wonderful Noel. They will get so used to it that they will miss it the day it is not topped up. ....
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, I wish I could know your name as it says anonymous, regards
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