Oh, I am alive it, don't you know? Litting nothing all major
look, I major look. I'll make you double taste as I call up
your Kira practice doesn't get your next well, good Sunday morning. Tell you
hey, I am. I am excited about this next hour. I've been
talking about this morning. But from eight to nine, Uh, we are
gonna talk birds. And that doesn't that sound fun? I mean we are
gonna We're gonna talk about everything birds. I've been talking this morning about the
advantages and the ways that birds bring another another factor to our backyard gardening experience,
the visual and the audio and everything like that. And uh, I'm
We're fortunate to have Rich Eddie from wild Birds Unlimited this this morning, and
Rich, I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you very much.
Good to be here. It's good to have you. We're gonna pick
your brain today. So if you guys, if you guys have a phone
question, you want to call in with a question about birds, that's what
we're here far for this hour. So if you've got a question about gardening,
otherwise, we're gonna ask you just to hold onto that and we're gonna
we're gonna stay on the topic of birds between now and nine o'clock. And
so we got Rich and here we go. We can we can pick his
brain. Rich I got one of the wild Birds unlimited squirrel excluder feeders.
Oh, all back right, and I'm telling you it gives me deep great
joy to frustrate squirrels. They've tried everything and they cannot get into that.
I watch a guy on YouTube that sets up obstacle courses for squirrels. I
don't know if you've ever seen what I have. Oh, it is entertaining
because the squirrels figure it all out. I mean, they're awesome, not
this feeder. They're very smart. But those feeders are very effective. So
I've got customers who really love the squirrels. Yeah, and I have customers
who really don't want them on their feeder. So I know. So,
but the eliminator and the fundamentals either one of those are great feeders to keep
them off. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I have to be careful
because you know, I can't say things like tree rats. I can't say
that some people like squirrels. Oh, I just said it. I just
said it. Yeah, But I enjoy the birds. I mean the squirrels
are Okay, they're there. They're gonna be there anyway. But I've got
a garden, I've got tomatoes over there, and they're just little marauding vandals
when it comes to my garden, they are. I have a little bit
of a caddyshack attitude toward the star. Well, this, this hot,
dry weather too, is really pushing them places that they may not normally go.
Well, and I and I, you know, I feel mercy for
any creature out there that's diana thirst. It's hot. Everybody needs water.
Heard you're talking about the bees earlier. Yeah, yeah, I mean they're
definitely collecting around the bird baths in the fountains. That's true. That's true.
Well, let's talk a little about bird watering. Tell me about you
know, of course everybody knows living things have to drink, but tell me
a little bit about watering for the birds in the backyard. Yeah. So,
you know, we have a saying in our store. Yet not all
birds will come to a feeder, but all birds need water. And so
if you want to get a wide variety of really just any kind of wildlife,
adding water to your backyard is really important. So it could be a
bird bath. It could be a pond, there's always great fountains. Anything
moving water will help attract them. But having water, particularly in the migration
times in the spring in the fall. Again, those birds that are coming
through, they may not go to feeders, but if they see water,
they're going to make a stop because they need water to make their journey.
So yeah, it's very important, and right now really really important because it
is just dry. There's no standing water really anywhere, right And so I've
got five bird baths and fountains in my yard just kind of all over the
place, and they're all busy, so I'm very busy. That's awesome.
Uh yeah, I you know, when I go down into wallbirds, it's
like a toy store, a candy store or something for me. But I
was looking at you guys have beautiful bird baths. I mean they are they're
you know, just like a focal point of the landscape. They're so pretty.
And then and then look gadgets, like there's something you guys have that
it like moves the water and causes ripples. So the mosquitoes don't lay egg
they don't like they want stagnant water. They don't want that's rippli water,
So tell me about that. Yeah. So moving water. So we've got
a couple of different things. One of it is called our dripper mists,
and so it's a it's a device that hangs on the side of your bird
bath and it will constantly drip and so that moving water will drown the mosquito
larvy. And that's why moving water not only kills the mosquito arvy, but
it also attracts the birds. So having moving water like that, so the
dripper mist is good. Um. It has a misting tip that you can
put in it. So with the hummingbird season coming up, humming birds they've
got to clean their feathers just like other birds do, but you know,
heavy drips and things like that are a little harder on them. So they
love to fly through the mists and get themselves wet and then go off and
preen their feathers. That's cool. I've seen video of that and that's pretty
neat. So this is a little device, like he said, it hangs
on the bird bath, but it's actually a little tube that comes up and
bends over and either drips or as you say, miss or miss Yeah,
and you just attach it to an outdoor faucet. So yeah, so those
work really well. And then we've also got little solar bubblers. So the
solar bubblers work really well as long as their sun, which we've had no
lack of over the last couple of months, and those those will recycle the
water and keep it moving as well. Well, good, well, we've
got Marty in Fairfield. We're gonna go listen to a bird question. Okay,
so here we go. If you're if you have a bird question,
the number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Well,
good morning, Marty, good morning. I just wanted to ask while birds
and lapses, it's Richard, it is, Yes, okay. I I
love y'all's stores. They're so cool and I just can't get enough of all
the products. But I do want to have a question about, um,
how do I keep the trash birds from hanging around and keeping the good birds
away? Yeah? So yeah, are you talking like starlings and grackles?
Probably yeah, yeah, yeah, So a couple of things about well,
starlings are a different problem than grackles. Grackles or they don't particularly like safflower,
So people who want to keep blackbirds grackles off of their feeders. If
you go to a straight safflower, UM, they don't particularly like it,
so they'll move on. That's that's one thing that you can do. UM.
The other thing is is that we do have predator guards that you can
put over your feeders. We've got one. It's like a cage. It's
got a two inch opening, so they'll let birds cardinal sizing down in.
Now that won't keep starlings out. We've also got a new device in that's
actually more ornamental and it's got chains that drape down over the feeders so it's
not quite as intrusive looking, and that also works very well to keep the
big birds from coming in and dominating the feeder. Hey, Marty, we're
gonna have to take a break here, but I just need to cut in.
If you want to hang on after break. If if there's more to
your question, that's fine. If not, thank you so much for calling
in. I appreciate that. Hey. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. We're here with rich Eddie from Wall Birds Unlimited, and we're
talking birds all day. When we come back. I think we're gonna talk
about hunting birds. I've been wanting to get to that one. But hang
around, we'll be right back, katrh Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Kate the r
H Garden Line with Skip rictor just watching as well. Good morning. You
are listening to garden Line this morning. Hey, if you are interested in
a new tree for your place and you're looking for a good deal and a
good tree and people that know how to plant it, that would be Verdant
Tree Farm. You know. Verdant has three locations are out there on Barker
Cypress. They've got a location down in um U Gosha. Can't even say,
I just went blank for a second. Thank you, in the pair
Land on Broadway Street, and then up in the Heights where Yo comes into
I ten, there's a Verdant location there. Here's the deal right now for
July, there's a Christmas in lil ten to fifty percent off the trees when
you purchase them with an install, and you need to buy them with an
install because they know how to plan them and you get a big old tree
in there. You got to have somebody who knows what they're doing. And
plus you know, I keep making the comment about you got to disappoint your
chiropractor by not trying it yourself. Right, Well, they ten to fifty
percent off. That's for the tree. Now the install separate. You pay
for the install separate. But what a deal. I mean, if you're
looking for a quality tree, that's what they grow. If you're looking for
people that know how to effectively establish it so it survives, that would be
verdant tree form. Well, we're here today with Rich Eaty and we are
talking all kinds of things birds, but I want to kind of shift gears
a little Rich and talk about hummingbirds. I just think they are among the
most amazing. You mentioned the little mister thing you guys have that the hummingbirds
love to fly through preen their feathers and things. But let's kind of get
an overview of some things that you think people need to be aware of regarding.
Yeah, so we have two distinct migratory seasons for hummingbirds in the Houston
area. So they in the spring March through May. Those little birds,
believe it or not, across the Gulf of Mexico and make their way through
the Houston area. So they're they're coming north out of Mexico, Costa Rica,
Central America where they winter, so they're coming north and they're moving up
into their breeding ground. So some folks here in Houston are lucky enough to
have them all through the summer. Most of them move on. So even
just as close as you know, Columbus, aust In, that area of
folks there have hummingbirds all summer long. Wow. Yeah, but they go
all the way up into Canada, up into you know, the mountains of
Colorado, all the way to the east coast, So I mean just the
United States is covered in them. And now the fall migration, we're about
ready to get started on it. As a matter of fact, as over
at Edith Moore home of Houston Audubon and it saw hummingbird over there the other
day hitting the turk's cap. So so there's just signs of them starting to
show back up. So the big months for us here in August September.
October September is the biggest month. So not only are we getting the birds
that came north in the spring, now we're going to get all the birds
plus the offspring coming back through to my great back to the south. So
yeah, so we'll have a lot of birds starting in August, September,
in October. And so when would you consider again the first like, when
would you put feeders out in the in the early season for you, Yeah,
so March, beginning of March, So March April may kind of tails
off, but now I always sell folks first of August. Put your feeder
up. If somebody is interested, if they've got a backyard that's got a
lot of the nectar bearing plants like the salvia, turks cap, things like
that, you might start to see them on your flowers. If you start
seeing them on your flowers, go ahead and put your feeders out. Okay,
you are talking about the turk's cap and the salvias and things like that,
And of course we're gonna talk about feeders and birds and birdhouses and all
kinds of things. But uh, planting for the birds is an important thing.
And one thing I like. You know, we talk about buchanans here
a lot. One thing I like about buchanans is they really focus on native
plants, and so things like a turk's cap, things like the native salvia,
some of the burying bushes, but even just good shrubs that provide birds
cover around the landscape. You know, you can do that. I was,
I was at Buchanan's the other day looking at some of the turks cap
they had and some other blooming things, you know, with the long salvia
like flowers and other red tubular flowers that attract them. And boy, that
that is something you need to do too, if you're gonna, if you're
gonna take care of your birds. Yeah. Absolutely, So we encourage all
of our customers that we talked to to get your yards certified through National Wildlife
Federation. Okay, people can get their yards certified very easily. Um,
all it really takes is, you know, to have um bird a place
for the birds eat, to drink, to raise their young, like a
nest box or whatever. And then cover birds need cover to get away from
harm. Right, So, when when the local cooper's talk decides to make
his presence known in the backyard, having a thick shrub like um place for
them to dart into, it is important to give them a place to be
safe. That's good to know. Yeah, good to know. We'll tell
us some more things about hummingbirds. Uh, you know, having success with
hummingbirds, taking care of them and just to bring them in. Yeah,
i'd like to. I'd like you to get you a dress. As you
answer that, the idea of dyeing the sugar water red, you know,
don't always been something people thought they needed to do, but but go ahead.
Yeah, no, we don't want you to do that. So when
you make your hummingbird nectar, we encourage folks just to use regular white table
sugar. And it's four parts of water to one part of sugar. So
it really just depends on how much you want to make. Um all that
sounds like what people do to their iced tea here in the South, exactly,
right. So yeah, So I have a court jar and I feel
that. So it's four cups of water and I just put one cup of
sugar in there. I just fill it with hot water. You don't need
to boil the water, but just get it hot enough so the sugar will
dissolve well, right, and so and then I use what I need and
I put the rest in a refrigerator. So in the summertime, particularly this
year, if you're putting out sugar water, you need to replace it every
three days or so, because once if you put it in, it's gonna
look really nice, clear and bright. Within a couple of days, you're
going to start to see that turn and so that'd be good to turn sour.
So that becomes not healthy for the birds. So you need to dump
it, rinse it out, and refill it with clean nectar. Dyeing the
nectar red. We do not want you to do that. It's proven that
the red food coloring is actually harmful to the birds. Most of the feeders
nowadays have lots of red on them anyway, So it's the color of the
feeder more importantly than the color or of the nectar. So yeah, well,
I mean think about well, think about turk's cap. You got a
big green bush and there's a red flower on it. You don't have to
paint the bush red together hummingbirds down, that's exactly right. Yeah. So,
and certainly if you have things in your yard like the salvia, turk's
cap, lantana, milkweed, things like that that the hummingbirds love anyway,
they're gonna find your feeder almost automatically. So a lot of folks don't realize
too hummingbirds when they're coming through here. They're eating a lot of insects.
They've got to really fatten themselves up. So if you think about that little
bird making a twenty hour trip across the Gulf of Mexico, they've got to
really bulk up and get ready for that trip. And so wow, yeah,
so they're eating a lot of insects. Of the nectar that's in the
feeders is giving them the energy that they need to continue to forage. That
is great information. If you're just tuning in, we're listening. We're talking
with Rich Eaty from wa Birds Unlimited about all kinds of things birds this hour.
So he'll be with us all the up the nine o'clock. Give us
a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Rhin will
get you on the boards and we will talk birds with you when we come
back. Black but singing in the dead of nine. Take these broken wings
and learn to fly all your line. You were only waiting for this moment
to run. Hey, we're glad you're listening to Garden Line today. We're
here talking birds today. I have fortune of having a Rich Eaty with me
from wild Birds Unlimited, and we are going to be continued to talk all
kinds of things birds during break. We were just talking about hummingbirds. You
know, think about this. You're you're a tiny little hummingbird, I mean,
just little bitty things, and your wings beat sixty times a second,
and you're gonna fly all the way across the Gulf of Mexico with nothing to
land on. Just let you let your brain absorb that. How much I
would have to take a truck load of energy bars with me for the trip
just to survive it. It's just a miracle that they can do that.
That's really cool stuff. Yeah, it is. I find it amazing.
There are guys that work in the offshore rig platforms and stuff. They'll see
humming birds as are making migration. It's not uncommon as well. Wow,
but yeah, I mean it's a it's a tough trip for them. I
mean they're they're putting their lives at steak to make that journey every year.
No kidding, that is cool stuff. We got a couple of questions in
here, by the way, our phone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna go out to Parland first, Hey,
Kevin, I believe you've got a question about birds. Hey, good morning
guys. I just really got into birds in the past couple of years and
I've been buying my food at wild Birds Unlimited in Parland and it's just quite
enjoyable just watching them, you know, come and feed and I don't all
the different species and everything, but I've noticed last year that we had a
lot more hummingbirds and this year I'm not seeing on my I mean when is
technically humming bird season? Yeah, so yeah, so you're seeing Jeff down
there in the Parlance store. Just also got a new store over in clear
Lake as well. Right now, you're not going to see very many hummingbirds.
It's just starting for the fall migration. So have your feed, are
ready, watch your yard. But August September, October September is going to
be the busiest month for seeing them in your backyard. Even in the springtime,
you're not going to see as many. Even though the birds are coming
through, they've pretty much got one thing on their mind and that is making
it to their breeding grounds to the north. So for us right now Houston,
it's August September October September being the busiest month. That's when that's what
I encourage folks. If you've ever noticed, the hummingbirds will fight over a
feeder. One bird will guard that feeder like crazy. So if you think
about it, they're trying to get ready to make that journey. So if
they find an energy source like that, they're going to protect it. And
so I always tell people put up one more feeder than you have birds.
So so you know, in my yard, I'll put up five or six
feeders, and so that gives the birds an opportunity to guard their own feeder.
But then I still get to enjoy a lot of activity in the yard.
I get to watch them fight and bicker and carry on. So yeah,
so you're really just starting to go. So during the months of June
and July, you're not really going to see many hummingbirds in our area.
Some folks do, but but that's not the not the prevailing. Yeah knowledge
for everybody. Well, I appreciate it very much, man, Thank you
all, Bret Show you bet, thanks for call. Appreciate that. Kevin
h We're gonna head now over to Claire Lake City and talk to Steven Well.
Good morning, Stephen, Good morning, sirs. Apparently you knew what
I was going to ask about my significant other and I live in two different
places and we've put up as many as three feeders in each place, and
there's that one garden dog bird just chases all the other birds away. Yet
we were in a ranch down near Fredericksburg that has a ton of feeders.
They've banned the birds even and didn't see any of them fighting down there.
Um, is there anything else you can do other than yeah? Unfortunately,
Yeah, Unfortunately for us in the Houston area, as they're getting ready to
make that migration, they're they're pretty hondry and pretty protective of a food source
that they find. When you're when you're in their breeding grounds and they're they're
raising their young and things like that, it's very common to see multiple birds
on one feeder. So um, So, like I said, unfortunately in
Houston, that's gonna be that's going to be your experience, by and large.
Every once in a while, you'll you'll be able to see a couple
of birds decide to tolerate each other and land on the same feeder. But
again, putting up more feeders is a way for you to see more birds.
Any other thing, too, is to is to put them at least
ten feet apart if you can. So if you can scatter them around your
yard, certainly put them where you can enjoy them. I mean, that's
why we put feeders out right, is to enjoy seeing the birds. Speaking
of enjoying them, it's kind of entertaining to watch them fight with each other
they dive bomb. But it's kind of sad in the other hand, because
good birds that want to drink. Oh yeah, for sure. Well though
they're doing okay, so I mean they're but yeah, they're they're just being
very protective. But yeah, hummingbirds. You know, they can fly upside
down, sideways, backwards, I mean, and they can go full speed
and just no time. So yeah, I mean they are. They are
a fascinating bird. So good. I hope our military is learning from how
they fly. Then, okay, thanks very much, Yeah, Stephen,
thank you for Hey, you're lucky Stephen to be out there and clear like,
that's the newest wallbird store. Jeff as I that right, it is.
So there's seven of us around town. So there's a landing page WBU
dot com slash Houston, and you find the find the store nearest to you.
So and you're located over on the Katie side, right. Yeah.
So I've got two stores. I've got one up in Cyprus which is at
Barker Cypress in two ninety and the other one is in Memorial at the Memorial
and Kirkwood intersection. Good. I think I've been in the Memorial one.
Yeah. Yeah, I always tell folks that's right next to those tios.
Everybody knows where those tios is over there. So well, I mean,
what a good day. I mean, you go get you some good Mexican
food and you pick up your bird supplies and everybody gets to eat. That's
right, that's good. Hey, our phone number seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
give us a call. We are visiting with rich d from Wile Birds Unlimited
today. So you got some bird questions, let's talk about that. We've
got the expert here to kind of direct traffic and put us in the right
direction on anything related to birds. You know, there are a lot of
there are misconceptions out there about birds, Like we're talking about the red dye
and the hummingbird feeders and things. What would you say, Rich would be
some of the just the basic ABC's. Maybe somebody goes, you know,
I love my landscape. I remember thought about bringing songbirds in, you know,
because I like to talk about the fact that they visually are pretty,
but there they add music to the air. I mean, going out in
the morning with a cup of coffee is just wonderful. So to hear the
songs of the birds. What would you say, are kind of some of
the abcs that someone should know if they would like to start moving in to
birds. And then, by the way, I have to warn listeners,
it's addictive. Yeah, I mean this is you know, a hummingbird feeder
is just it's the gateway drug. Okay, so it's a great addictive though
it's a wonderful, wonderful hobby. But anyway, yeah, I mean the
most important thing if you think about what birds need, that birds need insects,
right, So making sure that you focus on the native plants to Texas
is super important. We always tell folks if you want to attract chickadeese plant
and oak tree. An oak tree is a host plant for hundreds of different
types of moths where they'll lay their eggs, which turn into pupe and caterpillars,
which the chickadees need to feed their young. I always tell folks chickadees,
if you have chickadees nesting in and around your house, you've got a
great habitat. Because chickadees will collect almost three hundred caterpillars a day. Let
that to think, to feed their young. And they've got to do that
for twenty eight days, so they've got to collect about ten thousand or more
caterpillars. And they do all of that within you know, a hundred yards
or less of the nests. And those those caterpillars are important because as important
as like bird seed and stuff is when it's nesting time, having that those
proteins, those rich sources of food, that's really critical. I mean,
you guys have like a dried meal, worms and products and other things we
can supplement with. But there these birds are working for you. Oh yeah,
no, they they absolute we are. You know, backyard bird feeders
themselves are probably only about fifteen percent of their overall diet necks, right,
So the feeders are really for our enjoyment. It's to pull the birds into
your yard. Now, it's also important during nesting time while the birds are
out collecting insects to feed their young. They're coming to the feeders to feed
themselves. That's why our nesting super Blend is a great feed even right now
while the nesting season is starting to wrap up. The high fat, the
high protein that's in there. If you've noticed, birds are going to start
going through their molt pretty quick. Yes, there's some pretty pretty shaggy looking
cardinals and blue jays flying around right now, and what they're doing is they're
getting rid of their old feathers. They're going to grow some new feathers to
get themselves ready for winter. And your nesting blend is just the perfect for
that. Yes, it's the perfect blend with the high fat, the high
protein. It'll get them through that season. We've been talking about the different
kinds of birds that even we're still nesting going on into summer. That's right
for a good while and then hoo comes the molt season. So that's just
a good cover you're summer, I guess yea. So having the having the
insects in your yard, which means to have the insects, you've got to
have the native plants. If you plant exotics, then then the insects aren't
going to come naturally and so super important. You know, Rich, I
read a book I guess a couple of years ago. I kind of lose
track of time on that, but it was the most recent eye opening book
related to the natural world of our landscapes that I've ever read, and it
was by Doug Talamy called Bringing Nature Home. Absolutely what you're talking about.
An oak tree has a ton of caterpillars up there in it, and they're
not going to kill your uk tree. You may even not even notice a
little bit of disfoliation that's happening. But how important that is for birds.
And you've alluded to it several times talking about the importance of native plants.
You know, we bring things in. A lot of our landscapes are from
Asia, you know, the lagustrum and the red tip photinia is the pitosporeums
and just a lot of things. And if you look at those, we
don't have catipullurs all over them, no, but our native plants do.
And if you haven't read Bringing Nature Home, I would highly recommend it.
It is an unbelievable book. There's a thing going on called Hometown National Park,
USA. Right, Yeah, that's a dougtolomy thing. Yeah, trying
to turn every yard into a national park. Is that while we look at
the mass of our natural parks, which they're great, right, our national
parks all over the US. The ideas that you know, the the Audubon
or Cornell had estimated we'd lost three or four billion birds since the late seventies,
and a lot of that has to do with land sprawl, development things
like that, losing habitat and the ideas to not you know, I just
don't want people to freak out and think, oh my god, what have
we done. Start in your own yard. Start with you and your neighbors.
Start with your neighborhood. And if everybody takes these things into account,
and you you think about planting for the nature in your area, because what
we do here is going to be different than it is in Austin and it
is in Dallas, right right, But everybody's got their native plants, and
so yeah, start start in your own yard instead. A good example that
is great. We're gonna take a break here in just a little bit.
Our phone number though is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
You know, I know you as a listener a garden Line. I
just believe that we have a lot of compassion, of people that care about
other people that listen to the show, and of all the causes that are
out there, one that just really hits home to me. As a Star
of Hope mission here in the Houston area. Star of hopes have been around
a long time. I mean it was several decades ago my wife and I
first volunteered at a Star of Hope mission. They make a difference. You
know, it's one thing to hand somebody on the corner who's panhandling a few
bucks to get by. I won't go into the details of how much that
helps or hurts, but I can tell you this, with Star of Hope,
the money goes into long term life change people giving them a chance.
You know, if you are homeless for whatever reason, maybe no fault to
your own, for you to be able to get a job, you can't
do you have a transportation to the job. Do you know how to get
a job? Were you ever taught how to do an interview? How to
hold a job? Are you struggling with substance abuse and that's affecting your ability
to hold a job, Starhoop does all of that. They reach all of
that. Two dollars and eighty cents provides a meal at Starhope and by the
way, they serve six thousand meals a week. They are making a difference.
It's not just a handout. It is long term life change that is
changing the face of homelessness. And I would encourage you to check out Shmission
dot org. Shmission dot org. It is an incredibly good cause and when
you learn about the difference they make, it just moved. It moves me
to compassion, and it moves me to want to do something where my dollars
really make a lasting change. We're going to take a break now and go
to news again. The number seven one three two to fifty eight seventy four
in all the Days Long song, all the little Birds on Deep Birds Steet,
don't do it. The Robin Gold tweet tweet good Sunday morning. Appropriate
music for today. We're visiting with Rich Eat from wild Birds Unlimited about all
things birds. If you'd like to give us a call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four And we are not going to waste time and
go straight out to the NASA area and talk to Matt. Good morning,
Matt. What's your question? Hi, good morning guys. UM. I
was living down in Corpus for quite a while and there were some really bright
green colored humming birds, almost a metallic or iridescent color, and I haven't
seen them here in the Houston area to sitting it was a different species,
or yeah, to Houston it is. It's called the buff bellied hummingbird UM
and they're they're very common in South Texas. They're in the Yary freeze.
A few years ago, I actually had a buff bellies show up in my
backyard. Oddly enough, he was knocked off course a little bit, I
think, But yeah, the buff bellies are pretty common down in that area,
and they're they're a beautiful bird, very they're they're a bigger bird.
And yeah, they've got that real dark green, metallic look to them.
Okay, Yeah, this was kind of curious. I tried to look it
up on my own and I wasn't able to. Yeah. Yeah, well,
we mostly get here are ruby throated humming birds. Those are going to
be the birds that are migrating through UM but also in the winter. We
always encourage folks too. After the ruby throated of left. And by the
way, there's another myth out there that says you have to take your feeders
down. Other words, otherwise the birds won't migrate. It's not true the
birds. The birds are on their own clock, so they're gonna leave when
it's time to leave. But I encourage folks to leave one small feeder out
all the way through the holidays because we get rufous hummingbirds that will winter here.
So those birds are up in the Pacific Northwest, up in the Oregon,
Washington, up into Canada. That's their breeding ground. And then when
they migrate, they'll go down the west coast. They won't cross the rockies,
they'll follow the coast lying down and then once they get down to the
desert southwest, some will peel off and head up the Gulf coast and winter
here in the winter. So yeah, so keep one. I keep one
small, like a four ounce feeder out and if you get one, you'll
notice that the nectar will start dropping because they're they're they're a little bit more
shy and they'll be on their own so um, but not uncommon for folks
to have roof of humming birds all winter. Nice hey, thank you for
the question, Matt, I appreciate that that was good. Good to know,
good to think about. Let's head out now to the gallery area and
we are going to talk to Paula. Hello, Paula, Hi, good
morning. I have excuse me and enclosed since then patio and have a bird
bath and a fountain, and I cannot attract birds or eating or butterflies or
eating beans. I'm growing really right now. The only thing I have blooming
are mandavilla. But I don't but no birds. Is it because my sense
is too high? I mean, can they not see or smell or however
they detect water and food? Well, you know it. Probably I could
probably help you a little better if if you were you could send me a
picture of your backyard. Send it to my email at at Houston, t
x WBU at aol dot com. Let me see it. I think a
lot of it just comes down to is there something in your yard that's entrusting
to the birds? They'll find it um So I think it's a matter of
it's like anything, right. So when folks put up a brand new feeder
for the very first time, they some will call me in a couple of
days and say it's not working. The birds aren't coming to my feeder.
It's gonna take time, right, So when folks put up feeders for the
first time, sometimes you've got to give it a month or so for the
birds to really find it. Birds are like people. They're they're creatures of
habit and they've got a forage pattern that they go through. Uh. And
so really it's a matter of your yard getting on a bird's forage pattern.
If you've got something interesting back there, the water is a great start,
and sometimes you can put things out like a little yellow or little yellow flags
tom that wave in the wind. Birds are kind of nosy, and so
if they see something like that, they may come see what that's all about.
But that's sometimes it's just difficult, and you got to give a time.
I don't know how long you've had your mandavilla in your water in your
backyard. But again, it really it just takes time. Do you have
a lot of trees or no? H no, No. I live in
a townhouse and so I'm basically I'm surrounded by other fence, you know,
other fenced in patios right right, So I would I would submit it's just
you know, my my mother she lived in an apartment for twenty years on
the ground floor. And I would have never guessed in a million years that
she would attract birds to her patio because she backed up to a parking lot.
But what she ended up doing is she put out it's called a seed
cylinder feeder, so it's just a block of seed and she puts we put
safflower out there for her because the grackles won't eat it. Um. But
she attracted cardinals and chickadees and wrens and house finches right to her backyard,
right on the parking lot of an apartment building. And she did it while
Yeah, and the hummingbirds coming out as well with that, Manda Villa,
I wouldn't be surprised if the hummingbirds find that. So you might think about
putting a hummingbird feeder out as well in the next week or two. Okay,
okay, perfect, all right, thank you so much. That is
great information. Thank you very much. We're going to go to Sharon in
West Chase. Hey, Sharon, we got about a minute till break.
How can we help hey, I wouldn't would you please go over again?
Just the list of the flowers, flowers that attract the hummingbirds. And there's
a flower that I remember, but I can't think of the name. And
it has orange, bright orange blossoms on it, and I used to have
those, but maybe I don't have them anymore. Well, the orange could
have been like trumpet creeper, that's one that they may go to. No,
it was something like fire. It had another name like fire in it,
firebush. Firebush. Amelia pattens is heat tolerant, and it has these
tubular red orange flowers kind of have a little yellow loop that they like.
And you said Amelia. Is that what you said? Amelia patterns pat Amelia.
That's the name I remember. Yeah, okay, yeah, I tell
you another that And it did attract the hummingbird, Yeah it does, it
does. And we got so many flowers that we should be growing here that
we can. Yeah, at please we view the flowers again. And also
I just wanted to say that I attract the cardinals by going out in the
afternoon later when it's not quite sublazing hot into water in my patio area with
a I have a spray nozzle and it'll shoot far up in the air,
so I'll put it. I'll shoot it up in the air and it'll fall
back down through my trees like I've got lugustrium and holly and everything that have
grown into trees. And the cardinals would just come flying in and I'll hear
them. They'll start tweeting and and they love to just get inside the foliage
and flutter their wings and bathe in the in the water. They love sound
like a dog. And I go outside, they hear us come out,
and they'll fly in and wait for me to turn on the hose. That's
good. Sounds like the word on the street with the birds as Sharon's places
a place to go hang out. My neighbors have oaks too. We all
have trees, so we have a little bit of a sanctuary circle around.
Well, Sharon, thank you for the call. I appreciate that we're gonna
have to take a break here. We're talking with rich Ed from wild Birds
Unlimited. We'll be right back after break. Our phone number seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four and Joan, you'll be first up when
we come back. Well, you are listening to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter, and we are with rich Ed from wild Birds Unlimited.
Wildbirds Unlimited. There's seven stores across the Houston area. Just go to
WBU dot com forward slash Houston and you can find all the wild birds right
here. And we've been talking all kinds of things birds today, and the
last couple of callers we were talking about some plants that they might like.
And you know, there are long lists of plants that hummingbirds like, but
one that I've noticed in my yard that they just love are a lot of
the salvia's. There's a salvia called Salvia gara nitica. Sometimes it's called a
nie scented sage. Sometimes it's called hummingbird saite. That's another colloquial name for
it, but it reminds me of something rich. Then we were talking about
during break that it doesn't have to be a red tubular flower for a hummingbird
to be interested in it. A lot of these blue, purple and other
salvias are really popular. Absolutely, yeah, No, I've got purple salvia
in my backyard in front yard and they love that stuff. And again,
remember while it can be a nectar bearing plant that it's important they're also harvesting
spiders and mosquitoes and gnats. They're eating a lot of insects. Okay,
So it's anything that will host these little insects, they're gonna love it.
So yep, that's nice. That is good to remember. They aren't just
entertaining our eyes. They are actually helping us with the oil mosquitoes. Boy,
we could use a few less mosquitoes around the Grem area, that's for
sure. Hey, there's some events coming up. Who are regarding h birds?
Will you tell me a little more about Yeah, for sure. So
everybody loves hummingbirds, I mean, by far the most popular bird. When
we get to the season, our customers certainly get really excited. But we
wanted to make sure everybody were aware of three pretty big events in our area.
And they're all in September. September ninth, there's a hummingbird festival at
club Woods, which is a Harris County park. It's up at twenty nine
twenty in Mushki. If you've never been to Clubwoods, highly encourage you to
go. It's a beautiful old homestead home by the name of the guy was
club Wood, and it's beautiful year round. But they will have a hummingbird
festival on Saturday, September ninth. They'll do the hummingbird banding. An interesting
note on that people wonder if hummingbirds came back to the same place every year
they captured the same female Rufus hummingbird, like seven years in a row after
they banded it. So they banded it, and then subsequently seven years in
a row they captured the same bird and checked the band So that's a really
good one. There's another one that will be down Everybody probably knows about the
Rockport Festival that's down at Rockport, Texas. That's from the fourteenth to the
seventeenth. That's a huge festival and they've got all kinds of stuff going on.
It's a nice easy drive down there. Strongly encourage you to go.
They have personal homes that are on a walking tour. There's a lady.
The word I got one time is that she'll go through forty pounds of sugar
a week feeding humming birds because it's a big staging area for the birds getting
ready to head back across the Gulf of Mexico. So the Rockport Festival is
awesome. That's the fourteenth through the seventeenth of September. And then a little
bit closer to home then is Lake Jackson. The Gulf Coast Bird Observatory right
down there on the coast, just outside Lake Jackson. They're gonna have it
on two Saturdays, September sixteenth and September twenty third, and that's going to
be from eight in the morning till noon of those two saturdays. And again
it's a place to go see the birds and they'll be doing banding and things
like that. And if you've never been to Gulf Coast Birding Observatory, you
can go back and look at our Facebook page. Back in April, we
saw some beautiful migratory birds come through there this last spring. Red tanagers,
Baltimore orioles, walnut chested warblers are sited. So yeah, so if you've
never been another, it's really easy drive down there. It's not a huge
place, so you can walk around, but it's beautiful. You can get
some good pictures as well. You know, as you're getting into being interested
in birds and bringing them to your backyard, it's good to have good resources
to learn more about them in rich your Wallbird websites are just just awesome for
providing information, but also when you walk in a store, you got people
helping you that really know what they're talking about, and then kind of direct
you. Absolutely. Yeah, no, all our all of our team members
go through what we called a certified bird feeding Specialist program, so they'll ask
you the questions. If you've got a particular problem you want to get solved,
uh, tell us what you're trying to figure out, or if you're
just getting into the hobby, we can we can help you every step of
the way. And if you're trying to solve a problem, like one of
the earlier callers, pictures always help. If you've got a particular problem you
want to solve, we can take a look at that and make some recommendations.
That's good, that's good information. Uh. And plus you know,
I coming from not knowing about birds. I had I have had a long
educational process. I got a long way to go still. But one of
the thing is, you know, you see bird seed for sale everywhere,
and it's full of those little red babies. And when you when you look
at it, you go, oh, that's cheap bird seed. I can
afford that. And and then you bring it back and you realize birds don't
really like to eat those little red babies. They're hard and they're you know,
they get kicked out on the ground till they finally maybe some doves drop
down there because they're starving or right, But you guys have seed that's directed
for different times of the year, different kinds of birds, different goals.
And you also have the meth free seeds, that's right. So instead of
you know, breaking up the black oall sunflower or whatever and dropping the shells
everywhere, right, you can get just go to the straight seed. I
have your staff flower seed that's like that that I'm using my feeders right now.
Yeah, so that's our no mess blend and so yeah, So you
know, as much as we would love to sell everybody all their bird seed
all the time, we realize you're gonna buy elsewhere. I just encourage folks
if they're buying a songbird blend of any kind, if you look at the
ingredients and you see corn, milow, wheat, those are ingredients that birds
absolutely positively will not eat. They're going to kick it to the ground and
so everything. And we have no cereal fillers in our feed like, we
get seed in every week so it's fresh and so yeah, and we've got
different blends and different types of seeds to target specific things that you that you
want to feed well. And I think the point too that I'm making is
you may look at something and think, well, that's that's a good price
on bird seed, but when what half of it is getting not eaten,
that's right? Is that a good price on bird seed or not, You're
you're doubling what it costs you essentially, you know, and I know it's
exactly. I think it's even like up to seventy percent. It can be
up to seventy percent for sure, And so yeah, the birds are gonna
kick it to the ground, and then with that laying on the ground,
you're going to attract probably some some things that you're not interested in seeing as
well. So the no masses are great because it's there's no shell moss on
the ground. One hundred percent of the seed that's in the bag is edible,
and it's highly improbable that it will germinate as well, so you're not
going to get some flower seeds popping up under your feeders in your yards.
So it's a nice tidy way of feeding your birds. Yeah, And I'd
noticed in the past when I first was going and using a cheap bird seed,
you would just watch the bird seed level just drop real fast, that's
right. And then you look in the feeder and it's like, oh,
I said, the red babies the milo you're talking about, right, corn,
and and they're just basically going through it trying to find stuff they can
eat, right whereas I put out the sapphire thing, and my gosh,
the birds are there all the time. But the level is dropping very slowly,
not putting out as much feed. Yeah. I convinced the guy one
time. He came in and said he insisted on buying this cheap blend at
a at a box store. He said, ooh, they just love it.
They ripped through it, and so you know, I told him,
I said, I said, do me a favor, try a five pound
bag of the snow mouse, and then you tell me what the difference is.
And he converted to a full time bird seed customer because he realized all
of it was going to the ground. There you go, there you go.
That's that's a good point. Hey, we're going to head out to
Waller now, Joan, thanks for waiting. What kind of question can we
help you with today? Yes, yes, good morning gentlemen. And I'm
a first time caller. So I appreciate being able to get in well.
Thank you. We have acreage and waller on that acreage. We do have
an egg wildlife exemption because we do feed the birds. We take care of
the birds every year. We have a private company either do a winter birds
survey or a breeding bird survey in the springtime. And you're right, the
populations are declining, both in terms of sure numbers of the birds and species.
But my question today is related to a property that we've owned for the
last eight years in Georgetown, Texas, because it's in a restricted fifty five
plus community which shall remain nameless for now. And to make long story short,
I've tried for eight years doing the organics with the corn gluten fertilizer,
no pesticides, despite our neighbors on all sides, you know, having the
landscape companies that pour on the pesticides and the herbicides as well. But during
those eight years, I had violets that came up, I had dandelions,
I had what my mom used to call digitalis, which I think is like
called a liar back something. And we had hummingbirds and also had blue bonnets
that escape from the flower beds onto the lot itself, and one of the
things was this particular h well it's called a sea. It's not an hoa
yet. But they allowed the blue bonnets, which was great because we also
had butterflies as well as birds, blue blue birds. We even had woodpecker
that tried to make a home out of our porch post, so that was
kind of discouraged by us. Say Joan, I wish, I wish we
had another hour because this is sounding fun, but we actually have about fifteen
seconds left. So to make a long story short, I've had to go
now with chemicals and we're not seeing the birds because the h or the CIA
was going to start giving me violations. And I guess it's just a question.
Is it a matter of time before the politics of the world change and
allowed people to have native All right, well, we're gonna we're gonna go
to break here. We'll come back. Maybe I'll have a comment or so
on that. Thank you so much, Rich for being with us today.
Rich Edie from wild Birds Unlimited. Go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston
for more information. Thank you, byebye.