In the middle of July, Calgary is briefly overrun by visitors and their young all decked out in cowboy boots and tin stars. It is an event. It lasts for ten days. We call it the Calgary Stampede.
A month later, Calgary is again overrun by visitors and their young. This time, however, the visitors are tiny, green birds passing through on their way to South America. This too is an event. It too lasts about ten days. But this event is called the Hummingbird Stampede.
Few people who are not gardeners even notice it. Like a bell curve, it begins slowly at the start of August, peaks around the middle of the month and then dwindles into nothingness by Labour Day.
For hummingbird gardeners though, the Hummingbird Stampede is the highlight of our gardening year.
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By the first of August, our gardens are ready for the carnival. A parade of blue delphiniums guides our guests to the garden midway. Beebalm and garden phlox, like balloons and cotton candy, sways in the August breeze. Honeysuckle, thick with leaves, winds through a wooden lattice; vivid orange fireworks explode in a verdant sky.
These are the key features of a garden built for hummingbirds in Calgary. Day lilies. Campion. Gladiolas. Monkshood. Hollyhocks and foxglove. All add depth and texture to hummingbird gardens in Calgary. But the birds themselves show only passing interest in any of these if delphs, beebalm, garden phlox or honeysuckle are in the immediate vicinity.
Plant them immediately next to your deck or patio. The presence of people will not deter the your tiny guests. The utter fearlessness of hummingbirds is so well known to natives in the Caribbean that some call their fiercest warriors by the very same name.
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Outside of this brief celebration in August, most Calgary gardens will rarely host hummingbirds of any age or gender. Some lucky lots along the city’s western boundary will see males all summer long. Some in other areas of the city who put out feeders will spot adult males in breeding plumage moving north to their breeding territories around the middle of May.
Most of us, however, will have to be content that ten-day period in August when new mothers are guiding their young southward across a continent and the Gulf of Mexico to their wintering grounds in the forests of South America.
© Brent Johner. Originally published in Calgary Gardening, August 2006. Reprint rights available. $9.95 CDN. Non-exclusive.
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