The 20th Annual Hummingbird Festival at Land Between the Lakes was over the weekend. My husband and I took our grandsons to enjoy the festival (really it was me who wanted to go).
I was so excited to see the hummers.
Since I haven't been able to attract many to my feeders, I was hoping to get a few good pics and pick up some hints or ideas for attracting them to my feeders.
The festival was at the Woodlands Nature Station of Land Between the Lakes. The hummers were flying all around the area and so enjoyable to watch.
We did go inside the station to view a slideshow "Simple Steps to Start A Hummingbird Garden". I did take some notes on my iphone of flowers I could add to my gardens to attract the hummers. The cardinal flower seem to be their most recommended one and it was growing in the viewing area. It blooms July - September and grows in sun or part shade.
Another plant they highly recommended is the Indian Pink. This is not my image, it came from here. It blooms from March to June in my area. The blooms are red even though the plant is named Indian Pink (my grandson questioned this).
I did talk to a lady about my issue of not getting many hummers to visit by feeders and she asked if I was making my own sugar water or buying a commercial one.
I must admit that this year I purchased hummingbird liquid locally.
She thought this was my problem and suggested I make my own.
Tomorrow, I'm cleaning my feeders and making my own sugar water.
I'll post an update on the success of changing my food from purchased to homemade.
Thanks for stopping in for another day of Life in Kentucky - Judy
Linking to:
Amaze Me Monday @ Dwellings
Met Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch
Mosaic Monday @ Normandy Life on Sunday evening
Nature Notes @ Rambling Woods on Monday
ABC Wednesday on Monday
Our World @ Our World Tuesday Meme
Inspire Me Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life on Tuesday
The Scoop @ StoneGable Blog
You're Gonna Love It Tuesday @ Kathe With an E
Wednesday Around the World @ Photographing New Zealand
Outdoor Wednesday @ A Southern Daydreamer
Wild Bird Wednesday @ Paying Ready Attention Gallery
Nature Notes @ Rambling Woods
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern
Home and Garden Thursday @ A Delightsome Life
Simple & Sweet Fridays @ Rooted in Thyme on Wednesday evening
Share Your Cup Thursday @ Have A Cup of Mrs. Olson
Foodie Friday & Everything Else @ Rattlebridge Farm on Thursday evening
Photo Friday @ Pierced Wonderings
Skywatch Friday @ Skyley
Saturday's Critters @ Viewing Nature with Eileen on Saturday
Camera Critters on Saturday
I'd Rather Be Birdin' on Saturday at noon
Seasons @ St. Germain's Blog on Sunday
Hello, the flowers are lovely. I have always enjoyed attracting the hummingbirds. Sweet shots of the hummers.
ReplyDeleteHappy Monday, enjoy your new week!
Thank you for sharing your hummingbird captures with us for MM today, Judy. I've never seen one in real life but your photographs will suffice until I do.
ReplyDeleteHappy MM from Normandy.
Hummers are sooo much fun..when we lived in Colorado, we had so many...I made my own sugar water and added bit more red food coloring to it than most of my neighbors...with that bright red, I had more hummers than I knew what to do with...
ReplyDeleteA hummingbird festival ... I bet that was fun and very colorful! Good luck with your feeders. Happy Monday!
ReplyDeleteHow lovely to see that many hummers. I make my own food and the little birds just love it. I'm visiting from Mosaic Monday.
ReplyDeleteSuch great shots of the hummers. It's always so much fun to see them. Hope your homemade food draws them back. Nice mosaics.
ReplyDeleteThe hummingbirds stay here all year round and are a real treat to watch. They seem to like just about any of our brightly-coloured flowers. Good luck with your own food - I'll bet they'll be coming around now!!
ReplyDeleteJudy, when I had feeders I would make my sugar water. We have an abundance of hummingbirds this year without feeders! They love our flowers! Hopefully this will solve your problem! Great shots of the hummers! Pam @ Everyday Living
ReplyDeleteWhat a gorgeous sight!
ReplyDeleteThese are such fascinating birds - I was greatly blessed to have experienced them up close during a 3-week house exchange on Vancouver Island in 2014. My responsibilities included checking on the 13 red feeders every day and replacing the sugar water (not commercially made, but mixed by me according to my host's "recipe" - there were always plenty of hummers eager to empty the feeders! Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested to read if the homemade mixture attracts more hummingbirds. We don't have feeders in our garden, but the hummers come anyway. It's fun to eat breakfast while watching them eat, too. They eat much more quickly than we do!
ReplyDeleteYour pictures are so pretty, Judy! We used to get quite a few hummingbirds around here. I started making my own sugar water, as well. But, usually, it was the flowers that attracted them. I haven't seen as many this year.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous little birds
ReplyDeleteWe have one couple this year and they feed several times a day on sugar water. Other years we have had more something seems awry.
ReplyDeleteHell!:) How wonderful to see so many of these very pretty birds. Love your flower images.:) Have a good week!:)
ReplyDeleteWonderful! Great photos!
ReplyDeleteI hope that making your own sugar water helps you attract more Hummers. We make our own sugar water, and have about 15 birds here now.
As the Hummingbirds come south in large groups we expect them to be here in north Mississippi the second week of September. There's a Hummingbird Celebration at Holly Springs, MS, we plan to go to Sept 10.
Good luck with the sugar water Judy. I believe it works well although we don't have hummers in the UK.
ReplyDeleteI'd like just one Hummingbird in my garden. So very lucky, and great post.
ReplyDeleteWonderful series on hummingbirds and thank you for planting for them. I so enjoy them here up in NY too..Michelle
ReplyDeleteHow lovely that you can see them and learn how to attract them to your garden! 'If you plant them, they will come!' is my advice. Hubby gave it to me for the swan plants to attract monarchs--and it worked!! I'm sure you will let us know how it works :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing at SYC! :0 Jo
ReplyDeleteJudy,
ReplyDeleteGorgeous photos of the hummingbirds, dear friend!
Yesterday, after "Mr. Ed" and our neighbor mowed the lawn,
I saw three hummingbirds around our hibiscus bush!
Fondly,
Pat
Hello, it is amazing to see groups of hummers together. I have one family that seem to fight over the feeders. The flowers and photos are all beautiful. Thank you so much for linking up and sharing your post. Happy Saturday, enjoy your weekend!
ReplyDeleteHi Judy, I enjoyed the photos and appreciate the suggestions of flowers to attract hummers! We've had 2 hummingbirds per year for probably 6 or 7 years now. I've tried all kinds of different flowers, more than one feeder and I make my own sugar water, hoping to attract more than 2. Sometimes we see 4 at the end of the season, which is fast approaching. I don't know if the extra birds are offspring of the 2 or if it's other hummers passing through on their way to the Gulf of Mexico. (I'm in NC) I'll be interested in hearing how your experiment works out. Blessings, Janet
ReplyDeletethey bring such joy I never tire
ReplyDeleteWhat an event you went to and got marvelous hummingbird photos! Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHope your own sugar water helps ~
Wishing you happy days ~ ^_^
Yes, yes, yes!! I am in total agreement of the 'lady' who said that is your problem...the sugar water. Commercial mix they seem to not like it at all. I make my own =1 part sugar + 4 parts water [and I rarely boil my water, just straight from the tap hot water, let the sugar dissolve and fill the feeders.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of the Indian Pink flower/plant before.
Thank you kindly for sharing this with us birders at I'd Rather B Birdin'....it's always appreciated,
How neat to get to go to a festival! We have had a few come to our blue salvia this summer but don't have a feeder out right now! We love them though! Hugs!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun festival! I hope that the tricks you learned help you to get more hummers. I have hung a feeder in quite a few years, but have heard that homemade sugar is the best. I get a few of them in my garden. I was standing at my French doors the other day and one flew right up and looked at me through the window. It was quite amusing! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
ReplyDeletehugs,
Jann
I make nectar every single day - I do the 4 cups water/ 1 cup sugar. NO dye - the colorful feeders alone (and keeping it fresh always) will eventually do the trick.
ReplyDeleteI keep the extra in a Tupperware in the fridge and constantly have an ongoing process with them - just part of my daily chores! (This chore brings such pleasure, though, compared to say, um, washing the kitchen floor, haha.)
Now my advice is to NOT fill your feeders very full as to waste it - unloess you have a very storng hummer feeding (which you will not this late into the season) The nectar must be fresh every 2 days at the most as it quickly becomes rancid in this horrible heat.
Just keep it fresh and easy; mind your feeders and they WILL come. Make sure the feeders are close to trees or places the hummers can comfortably perch. Remember they're aggressively territorial - don't keep two feeders too close together.
Good luck! Happy feeding, Judy! Huge hugs!
I'm stopping by from Simple and Sweet Fridays - I had to see how all those hummingbirds were swarming around one feeder! I have only seen two hummingbirds at the same time in my yard, and only one at a time at the feeder. I do agree that homemade nectar makes a difference. Once I switched to that, they hummingbirds came!
ReplyDeleteJoe always makes our hummingbird nectar, and we attract many of them. We also have cardinal flower planted and they DO love it. I never knew about the Indian pink but will look for it. GREAT pictures!!!!
ReplyDelete