For hummingbirds, it is crucial for them to defend a reliable food resource. This is especially true for males. Since they mate with many different females, defending a good food source ensures that females will show up to hopefully mate with him. Like most birds, they are active for most of the day and sleep at night. BN

The safest recourse for those situations are these: 1. leafminers -- these are inside the leaf. While they're there, you can squish them, then discard the leaf. So inspect regularly & act immediately. 2. spider mites are worst on stressed plants and/or during warm/hot, dry weather. So now & then, wash off your plants with a light spray from the hose being certain to pay special attention to the undersides of the leaves -- that's where the mites live & breed. 3. aphids are small soft-bodied critters that can easily be washed off plants. Repeat as needed because if you miss just one, she can re-populate the plant by giving birth to a pregnant aphid every 20 minutes!

I swear that I am the worlds largest collector of bird baths. It's embarrassing how many I have. But hey! Some people collect lawn gnomes. Everyone here is right - any shallow dish can be a bird bath. Some of mine are serving platters, others are terra-cotta pot bottoms. I'm big on dishes of water set about the garden. The two most important features in a bath IMO are shallow and a textured bottom. A bath with a slick, glazed surface birds won't get in. They'll drink from the sides but not get in it. Some people use pebbles or rocks to compensate for this but that's harder to clean. My latest must-haves are small cast stone baths. You can see some here Small Cast Stone Cement Bird Baths. I have about four of them now, set beside shrubs about my garden and am crazy about them. Taller styles are here: Tall Cast Stone Cement Bird Baths but it's the little guys I love. I have had no problems with anything knocking them down. Their biggest drawback is you can't use them in winter, but the reinforced cement makes them stronger than regular cement. The bottoms are rough, birds love them, and you just scrub them out with a brush and some plain dish soap, use the hose. People ask me about them all the time and where I got them, that sort of thing. They come in lots of color choices which is nice!

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