Red-Flowering Currant

Day 178: Even on a dismal, rainy day, Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is a cheerful sight. One of the earliest natives to flower, this shrub provides nectar for hummingbirds after a winter diet of tree sap and small insects. Yes, hummers eat bugs! But when the Red-flowering Currant comes into bloom, they will even ignore the feeders, preferring natural food to sugar water (humans could take a lesson from that, don'tcha think?) I have two bushes on my property. The one outside the kitchen door blooms first and is not located where I can easily watch for hummers, but when the one in front of the carport opens, the overwintering Anna's come to it in numbers. The flowers will be near their end when the first Rufous Hummingbirds show up, but by then, there will be other tasty food sources in my yard.

Hummingbird Feeder

Day 177: The early-season hummingbird feeder is in bloom, attracting both Rufous and Anna's to its panicles of hot-pink flowers. They were drawn to my two bushes even before the buds had opened, hopeful of a sip of nectar as they probed the petals with their beaks. Although I keep glass feeders out year-'round (the Anna's hummers are here all winter), when the Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is in bloom, the kitchen-brewed syrup is largely ignored. This shrub is native to the area, and produces a less-than-palatable dusty blue-grey fruit which goes untouched by any of my resident birds. I'm sure some critter must eat the berries, but I don't know who.

Currantly On Display

Day 155: The Red-flowering Currants are springing forth with pink buds now. Not to be confused with Red Currants (the "domestic" type which has greenish-white flowers, and which you'll find in my berry pen ), Ribes sanguineum is native to western Washington. It bears dusty blue fruits, long on seeds and short on flavour, although its hot pink flowers give it the redeeming merit of being a strong hummingbird attractor. In my yard, both Rufous and Anna's Hummingbirds will bypass the feeder, preferring to sip natural nectar from the early-season blossoms. I maintain two Red-flowering Currant bushes primarily for the entertainment of my little avian friends. The fruit is considered edible, but only once have I attempted to add the juice from the berries to a jelly. I found that the faint musty taste of the fresh berries carried over too strongly even when used as a small proportion in the jelly.

Nonconformists

Day 60: Sometimes they does and sometimes they doesn't. I have been puzzling over my "Anna's" hummingbirds for some time now (note well the quotation marks) because they haven't all conformed to type. An Anna's female should look like the one in the main photo here, with a small white dot behind the eye, but in Costa's, it becomes a "postocular stripe" which extends further down the side of the neck. I've had birds which presented in both manners, but more notably, some male birds have displayed red gorget feathers projecting well beyond the back of the neck (the inset shows a bird with a short to medium-length gorget). That distinctive characteristic which made me wonder if they were Costa's. Some exhibited a blurry postocular stripe, and one notable gentleman's head and throat were amethyst purple. Others seemed to fall halfway between the described morphology of either species. When I finally got around to it, a little research took me to a paper published in 1977 by Shirley Wells et al. detailing the discovery of a hybrid between the two in California. Further digging provided the current known range of the hybrids and confirmed that they have been documented on numerous occasions in southwest Washington. Of course, there is a lot of room for variation when you're talking about hybrids based in the genetics of the parent birds and dominant/recessive traits, which explains the crazy, mixed-up morphology dancing around my feeders.

Crocosmia Lucifer

Day 285: You admire a plant in someone's yard, determine to get one for your own garden, and three years down the road, you discover that while lovely, it exhibits traits which make you wonder if it's considered a weed in its native environment. Crocosmia is one of those. Its showy, its brilliant inflorescences shining at the tips of graceful, slender stems; it quickly fills those boring spaces in your landscaping, and it propagates both by seed and bulb...vigorously, as if given half a chance, it would take over the world. Once established, it is almost impossible to eradicate, a feature I learned the hard way after planting the red variety "Lucifer" where its foliage soon came to block the sidewalk. I dug it out, sifted the soil through my fingers to remove even the tiniest of bulbs, but I'm still pulling Crocosmia five years later. Aggressive behaviour aside, it is an attractive and colourful addition to the garden. Just be sure to locate it somewhere it can sprawl. The hummingbirds will love you.

Ribes Sanguineum, Red-Flowering Currant

Day 183: Ribes saunguineum (Red-flowering Currant) is native to the Pacific Northwest with a range which extends from British Columbia to California. Its rosy flowers occur in drooping racemes to be followed by dusty blue edible fruits. I use the word "edible" with some reluctance and will repeat here a variation of a phrase I used only yesterday: "edible" and "desirable as food" should not be confused. While the fruits of Red-flowering Currant are enjoyed by some who have developed a taste for their seedy, acrid pulp, I find them undesirable when fresh. However, they make a passin' fair substitute for blueberries when baking muffins, although you might wish to add more sugar to combat a lingering and somewhat musty aftertaste. That said, I do not grow them for the table; I grow them for the hummingbirds.

Whenever practicable, birds, bees and butterflies should be drawn to the garden with native species. To do otherwise, i.e., to plant non-native species known to attract avian and insect life, is to pull them away from their real work of pollinating and perpetuating the native plants of an area. When offered chocolate, which of us would not turn away from the peas and carrots on our plate in preference for it? Presented with sweeter, non-native fare, "the b's" will turn away from native wildflowers, leaving many unpollinated and non-reproductive; wildflower numbers decline, and "the b's" decline with them, unable to sustain themselves on non-natives which do not fill their dietary requirements. As the cycle repeats year after year, the effects become more noticeable, with improperly nourished birds, bees and butterflies becoming more susceptible to disease. That caution given, there is the additional reward of seeing a wider assortment of "b's" coming to a yard filled with native plants: rusty Rufous Hummingbirds hovering at these pink flowers just one example "currantly" occurring outside my window.

Red-Flowering Currant

Day 179: To every thing there is a purpose. While I don't consider the fruits of our native Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) a "table" crop, the plants bring a harvest of a different sort, and one which is both enjoyable in an aesthetic sense and beneficial to the garden as a whole. I speak not of berries, but of the hummingbirds who come to visit. I've never seen anything but Rufous here, although Anna's is fairly common at only slightly lower elevations, but Rufous I have in abundance, and you can't go out in the yard without hearing them cursing at each other. It's not a sound you'd expect from such tiny beings, not a dainty peep or a musical tweeted note but a short, sharp bark of sorts or, alternately, a buzz like a wood-rasp being drawn in short strokes: "tzzzup-tzzzup-tzzzup." Even when food sources are abundant, the hummers swear like sailors at their compatriots, unable to speak a sentence which does not include at least one avian f-word, vulgar little things.

Singin' The Blues

Day 230: I was singin' the blues because the steady stream of Rufous Hummingbirds at the feeders seemed to have dwindled over the last week, but then I discovered why. They're going to the Columbine, the Honeysuckle and the Delphiniums instead! It's good to see my clientele turning to a more natural diet, and after all, that's what my garden is about: hummers and pollinators. Most of the plants I've added over the last several years have been chosen with them in mind.

While Delphiniums draw bees as well as hummingbirds, they come with a built-in "bee," the term arising from the central structure's resemblance to the insect. More than once, I've bent over next to a Delphinium only to find that a real bee was nestled into the flower's "bee," gathering pollen. Seen side on, the blossom "bee" is even fuzzy!

With birds and bees humming happily in my garden, I'm joyfully singin' the blues: Delphinium blues!