Hummingbird Revival

Reader Contribution by Mary carton
Published on July 25, 2011
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It was a very hot high humidity day. I was working on a new iris and daylily bed when Mom called from her house that she had a hummingbird in her garage.  As I walked into her garage, she said it must have flown out as she didn’t see it.  I started searching around her garage and it slowly fluttered over my shoulder and ran into the wall, slid down and then flies up toward the ceiling and then flew into the wall near the door and fell behind her rolling garbage can.   I pulled the can away from the corner and the little male was lying on its back, with his eyes closed.  I picked him up and he was so limp. I cleaned the webs off and Mom kept saying he wasn’t in here long.

I had Mom run water over my hand while I held his beak in the water stream. Shortly a tongue came out with just a little wiggle. I decided that the little guy needed something containing more energy than water so I ran over to my house to my hummingbird feeder. Well actually a fast walk, well maybe more of a labored walk since I was also over heated and still needing knee surgery.  I couldn’t get his beak down into the port of the feeder, so I tilted it and dribbled it slowly down his beak.  After what seemed several minutes, I saw a flick of his tongue and he started lapping in the sugar water.  Eventually he opened his eyes. I would let him lap a little bit and rest a little as I didn’t want to overfill him. I didn’t realize how long a tongue they have, and his was lapping up the syrup much like a cat would. Eventually he started sitting upright on his own in my hand and looking around.  I fed him a couple more times and he seemed to enjoy the hand feeding.  Another male flew up wanting to feed, and as I look toward that one to get a picture, the little guy in my hand flew off.

With the flowers on the decrease, the hummers are hitting the feeders heavily getting ready for their migration back to south of the border. Don’t use the colored dye sugar water in your feeders. Make your own by using 1 part of sugar and 4 parts of boiling water. Cool and place in your feeder.  The red on the feeder itself is enough to attract hummers.

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