Early blooms for early birds

摘要

These nectar-rich plants provide migrating hummingbirds with a floral feast. Imagine stepping off a plane into the chill of an early spring day in Toronto (or Saskatoon, or Montreal or Halifax) after an exhausting flight from Mexico. You're tired, cold and hungry, but all you can find for nourishment is insipid sugar water. Hummingbirds make this journey every year, powered only by their tiny wings, and on arrival are lucky to find even that. In cool, changeable, early spring weather, few people think to have feeders out, much less to clean them regularly.