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Moose, loons, frogs and leeches may have stolen the show for the kids at ou songbirds/hbird1.jpg

r recent camping trip to northern New Hamphsire, but for me, the smallest of birds was another major attraction.
A friend of mine and I brought our kids to the Great North Woods earlier this month. The mighty moose was a favorite — no surprise there. How could an 800-pound animal not be a favorite for a five year old? They also loved the loons, which was a pleasant surprise for me.
Frogs were also a favorite, but they proved to be too quick and elusive for the kids. That’s where the leeches came in. Leeches might be repulsive to many adults, but the kids loved the slow-moving, easy-to-catch critters, which the kids scooped up with nets.
Northern New Hampshire is also a great place to find hummingbirds. We stayed at the Tall Timber Lodge on Back Lake and the owners had an ample supply of hummingbird feeders and baskets of flowers that typically attract the tiny birds. I didn’t spend too much time looking for the hummingbirds, but when I did, I usually found them. I also saw them occasionally as they zipped past our cabin on the way to the feeders. Those sightings lasted about half a second.
I couldn’t get my son Andrew to buy into the hummingbirds, which probably explains why I didn’t devote a lot of time looking for them. Every time I asked Andrew if he wanted to check out the feeders, he had other projects on his mind, such as building “log cabins” with the sticks he found around our cabin.
Apparently to a five-year-old, looking for hummingbirds pales in comparison to using your hands to build something. I can certainly understand that.
But I did break away for short intervals to inspect the feeders. One afternoon, as soon as I approached the feeder station, a male ruby-throated hummingbird buzzed in and perched briefly in a nearby tree. It then drank a few sips from the feeder and moved its way over to a basket dripping with flowers.
It was interesting to watch the bird go from an artificial food source to a natural one. I’ve heard tons of advice on how to attract hummingbirds. Many people say hummingbird feeders are the only way to attract them. Other people swear by flowers and say the birds completely ignore their feeders. Some people say a mix of both is needed to get them. Well, the mix seemed to work perfectly at Tall Timber Lodge.
Drop me a line at the addresses at the bottom of this column to let me know what works for you: flowers, feeders, both, or neither. Do you have other tips to share? Let me know.
Personnally, I’ve had no success whatsoever in my attempts to attract hummingbirds. I have feeders at various locations and a few beds of flowers that supposedly are irresistible to hummingbirds. I’ve seen a hummingbird on my property only once and it was visiting a wild patch of jewelweed.
Hummingbirds eat small insects, but their primary source of food is nectar — and sugar water offered from specially-designed birdfeeders. Hummingbirds are our smallest birds, measuring about three inches long and weighing less than a quarter of an ounce.
While some varieties make rare appearances in New England, the ruby-throated hummingbird is the only variety that lives east of the Mississippi River. Only the male has the ruby throat, although females are slightly larger. This amazing bird makes a non-stop flight across the Gulf of Mexico during migration periods.
Its wings, which beat more than 50 times a second, perform other miraculous feats as they allow the bird to hover at food sources as well as fly at lightening speed in all directions.
To put its tiny size in perspective, they build nests about two inches long, which fits two eggs (and subsequently growing babies) comfortably. Let’s see a moose do that!

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