Salvia Black and Blue

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Purplebear

Salvia black and blue has become our favorite hummingbird plant. We featured it in our very first post on this blog. Since that time we’ve learned a little more about this plant. We live in southeastern Pennsylvania and it may or may not survive our winters. We grow it in a container on our deck and in the winter we put the pot in our garage, watering it every once in a while so it doesn’t dry out.

This past year the plant spread so much in the pot that we divided it and got 2 additional plants we put in our flowerbed and they’re growing great. Last year we also put one in our flowerbed and this past winter mulched it real good. It came back this year. The most important thing is that our hummingbirds keep coming back because they can’t resist the Salvia Black and Blue.

Salvia Black and Blue

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First hummingbird sighting and pictures of 2013

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Purplebear

First hummingbird sighting for 2013 was on Thursday, May 9th one day before the same time last year. The first to arrive was a male rubythroat about 6:00 pm followed by a female a couple of hours later. We’ve seen them both on and off for the last couple of days as long as those we’re seeing are the same birds.

Below are two pictures of them for you to see. They aren’t all that great for a couple of reasons. One being they are shot through two glass door windows and reason number two is we’re still learning to use our new Nikon D5100 camera. Hopefully as the year progresses we’ll get some better pictures.

Best thing though is our hummingbirds are back, hopefully for the rest of the season. We’ll try and keep you updated with future posts as the season goes on.

female rubythroat hummingbird sighting of 2013 picture
male rubythroat hummingbird sighting of 2013 picture

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Hummingbird photos from one of our valued blog visitors

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Purplebear

Here are some hummingbird photos sent to us from one of our valued blog visitors, Nicole Green in Slocomb, Alabama. Even though these pictures are all Rubythroats, Nicole told us she had a Rufous hummingbird at her feeder about a week ago also.

Again we’d like to very much thank Nicole for sending us these pictures.

The hummingbird migration map is showing that the hummingbirds are getting closer to us here in southeastern Pennsylvania. We plan on putting our feeders out in the next week or so.

Female rubythroat feeding on flowerRubythroats at the feederMale rubythroat looking for a female or guarding his feeder

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Our new Nikon D5100 camera

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Purplebear

After talking about it for a couple of years we finally purchased our new entry level DSLR Nikon D5100 camera. We hope this camera will give us the ability to take better pictures of hummingbirds and the flowers they like. We also plan on trying to get a few videos of hummingbirds using this camera if we can.

Below are a couple of pictures we took with this camera recently. The pictures are not about hummingbirds because it’s winter and we don’t have any here right now. We’ll probably need the time before the hummingbirds come back to learn how to use this camera properly.

Christmas cactus photo taken with our new Nikon D5100 camera
Orchid picture taken with our new Nikon D5100 camera

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Our 2012 hummingbird season is over

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Purplebear

Feeding female RubythroatSadly, the last hummingbird we saw this year was some time in the third week of September. I think the date was the 23rd or the 24th. We left the feeders up for a couple of weeks and we still had some flowers blooming but we didn’t see any after that.

We still haven’t gotten a new camera yet so we don’t have any new pictures to show you. We plan on getting an entry level DSLR camera soon that can take some better pictures and maybe some short videos. If anybody has any ideas for a good entry level DSLR camera we would welcome your input or advice.

Even without new pictures we still had a pretty good hummingbird year. We had three to four different females and two different male rubythroats on a daily basis. This made for a very enjoyable summer and we can’t wait till next spring. In the next couple of weeks we’ll try to find some new hummingbird gifts and make some posts for the upcoming holiday season.

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Our first hummingbird sighting of 2012

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Purplebear

our first hummingbird sighting of 2012It was Thursday a week ago May 10th we had our first hummingbird sighting of 2012. Since May 10th we’ve seen hummingbirds off and on every day. All of the hummingbirds we have seen have been female rubythroats and it appears that there may be two or three different birds. Above is a picture we took last weekend. It’s not all that good but it shows one of our new visitors.

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New Hummingbird Photos

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Purplebear

These new hummingbird photos came by way of the new photo editing software we purchased for our blog and websites. The program came with the opportunity to download 20 or so royalty free photos so we chose hummingbirds for this blog and flowers for our flower site. The picture below is a combination of four of the hummingbird pictures. The single pictures will be put in the hummingbird photo gallery at the top of the page.
Rufous, Costa's Rubythroat hummingbirds photoWe got these pictures just in time for the new hummingbird season. The rubythroat migration map is starting to show the first arrivals of this year. We live in southeastern Pennsylvania. so we probably won’t see any hummingbirds for at least six or seven weeks.

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Blue Porterweed (Stachytarpheta urticifolia)

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Purplebear

Last year at this time we sent away for some Blue Porterweed (Stachytarpheta urticifolia) and Cardinal Climber seeds. We made a couple of posts since, one showing the seedlings and one showing the Cardinal Climber blooming but we never posted about the Porterweed. Here are a couple of pictures we took last summer on our deck.

Close up Photo of Blue Porterweed (Stachytarpheta urticifolia)Photo of Porterweed (Stachytarpheta urticifolia) on deck

We tried the Porterweed because you see a lot of pictures with hummingbirds feeding on porterweed plants. That really didn’t happen with our plant, though. Since it was on our deck with the Agastache rupestris and Salivia black and blue it got very little attention from the hummingbirds. Regardless, it was still a great plant to look at and the bees and butterflies loved it. As for the Cardinal Climber we grew it in a large hanging basket and it grew great but didn’t look all that good. It probably would have been better off on a trellis, arbor or fence. It also didn’t get very much hummingbird activity.

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Monarda ‘Jacob Kline’ – Bee Balm

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Purplebear

We got one of these Monarda ‘Jacob Kline’  Bee Balm plants from our local nursery this year and planted it right under one of our hummingbird feeders. We didn’t get many blooms from the plant this year but what we did get attracted hummingbirds. We even had one hummingbird that went to the Bee Balm first and then the feeder which is unusual for us. This plant did have some bug or slug problems that kept it from growing properly. Next year we hope to get rid of these problems so the plant will grow better.

On another note we saw our last hummingbird around September 21st which is about normal for us. We left the feeders up for about two weeks longer but it didn’t look like they were used much. After we took the feeders down we still had flowers blooming for any late migrators, especially the Agastache rupestris. All things considered we had a very good hummingbird year with many visitors.

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August is our best hummingbird month

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Purplebear

August is our best hummingbird month because we have the most activity in that month. The Fall migration starts for us around the end of July or beginning of August. We’ll have three or four hummingbirds visiting the feeders and chasing each other around all day. Usually all of our hummingbirds are gone by the second week of September. As of today we still have a couple females that haven’t left yet.

Female Rubythroat hummingbird checking for other birdsThis female hummingbird is checking to see if she’s going to be chased away. Sometimes it seems more time is spent looking for other hummingbirds than feeding.

Male Rubythroat hummingbirdThis male Rubythroat hummingbird is one of two males we had visiting most of the season.

This female Rubythroat hummingbird appears to be chirping at an intruder. They’re always watching and listening for any others that may be nearby.

We feel fortunate again this year to have had a lot of visitors to our hummingbird garden. We’ve really enjoyed watching and listening to these little birds and will hate to see them leave.

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