New Year, New Nectar
Here on Hummingbird Hill, one of our most important duties is to keep the hummers happy. We have a handful of hummers year-round who regularly come to sip the sweet stuff from our two saucer-style feeders. When we were still new at it, we found it difficult to remember which of us changed the nectar last and when. This resulted in confusion and—more importantly—the potential risk of unhappy hummers.
So, I came up with a solution.
Enter: Nectar Refresh Schedule!
I had gotten into the habit of writing up a schedule of nectar-change times that could be checked off once the feeders had been cleaned and refreshed. After a couple of years of makeshift hand-scrawled versions, I decided to digitally draw up a nicer rendition that can be printed out and put on the fridge—as well as a blank-date template that can be reused each year!
I did some research on various recommended nectar-change-times and decided on this schedule as a general guideline to follow. To double-check, I sent my draft-version to the Rocky Point Bird Observatory (RPBO) to look over, and got their approval.
I've offered the design to the RPBO as a free resource download that can be accessed through their website (of which I hear they're in the process of re-vamping!), in the hopes that others will find it helpful and print out a copy for themselves.
Eventually, I'd like to make a two-sided version that has the schedule on one side, and a bunch of helpful-hummer-tips on the reverse, complete with illustrations.
In the meantime, here is the full 2021* Schedule for Victoria, BC residents, which you are welcome to download and print out for yourself. If it's too long to fit where you'd like it, it can be folded or cut up to reveal one season at a time, or half the year.
*Update: You can find the 2022 schedule here.