Little Tchefuncte Hummingbird Hill Habitat

Welcome to the Little Tchefuncte Habitat

Habitat Description Habitat, Habitat, Habitat.... If you plant it, they will come. To attract wildlife to your garden you must provide: Food - in the form of plants (nectar, berry, and nut producing) and/or feeders. Shelter/Cover/Nesting Sites - Evergreens are especially important for wintering Hummingbirds and natives are preferred nesting sites. Nest boxes can also be a pleasing addition to the garden or dead trees and limbs can be left standing. Water - from a large pond to a birdbath, but dripping or moving water is most appealing. Our property is a registered National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat (number 21325). We do everything possible to keep it natural and wild since natural wildlife habitats in the area are being destroyed at such a rapid pace. You don’t have to have a large piece of property, even a small backyard can become a sanctuary for wild creatures.
	A Day on Hummingbird Hill A typical day begins with the feeding of the birds and animals. Sunflower seeds and cracked corn are distributed among a dozen different feeding stations near the house and the suet feeders are also filled. We use about 75 pounds of black oil sunflower seed and cracked corn each week. Our 15+ hummingbird feeders are also checked and observed. We use from 2 to 5 pounds of sugar each week for these. A Walk to the River and Back Again is next on the agenda and a dozen more feeding stations are checked and filled. We also enjoy an Early Spring Nature Walk around the property to see the flowers blooming and the animals preparing for the breeding season. In addition to our regular activities, a typical Post-Katrina day includes cutting up and moving some of the 100 mature pine, black cherry, oak and hickory trees that were downed by the hurricane force winds and tornadoes. Clearing trails and repairing feeding stations and nest boxes are other Post-Katrina activities. Click on the small photos for a large view.


A Green Anole and a Young Ruby Throated Hummingbird share a sugar water feeder.	A Pine Warbler visits a suet feeder.

Nest Box Trail We maintain a trail of 25 nest boxes, most of which we built ourselves. The majority of the boxes are standard bluebird boxes that were constructed according to plans from the North American Bluebird Society and were erected with predator baffles. Four are larger boxes that were designed for wood ducks. During the breeding season, from late February to August, each box is checked on a weekly basis and a detailed record is kept of the progress of each nesting pair. To date our boxes have been used by bluebirds, chickadees, tufted titmice, Carolina wrens, Prothonotary warblers, great crested flycatchers, wood ducks, screech owls, and flying squirrels.	For more info about building your own nest box trail, visit our Squidoo lens: How to Build a Bluebird Trail.
	Visit our Prothonotary Warbler's are Golden Squidoo page, to find more information about these fascinating birds.	Click on the birdnest icon to read more about our Nest Box Trail.
	A female Prothonotary Warbler exits her nest box.	A bluebird fledges



	Butterfly and Hummingbird Gardens Hummingbirds are attracted to (usually red) tubular flowers that contain a lot of nectar. Butterflies require less nectar so most hummingbird flowers will also attract butterflies. But you should provide plants that the butterfly larvae can feed on like parsley, fennel, milkweed, citrus, passion flower, hollyhock, black cherry and mulberry to mention a few. Visit our Gardening to Attract and Sustain Butterflies Squidoo Lens for more information about butterfly gardening. If you are interested in hummingbirds, then you'll want to visit our Hummingbirds and Gardening page, you'll find plant lists and other tips about attracting these winged jewels to your yard. Also check out our Clearwing Hummingbird Moth Lens to learn more about interesting and beautiful moths and Moon Gardens. Scroll down for a list of other nature related lenses that we have written and links to our other nature sites or visit our Naturally Native Creations page.

Tiger Swallowtail on Mexican Sunflower	Plants That Provide Flowers To Attract Hummingbirds and Butterflies


Huckleberry	Red Buckeye	Sulphur Butterfly on Firespike

Early Spring and Summer		Fall and Winter
Taiwan Cherry Tree (Prunus campanulata.)	Texas Sage (Salvia coccinea)	Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans	Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)
Huckleberry / blueberry (Vaccinium spp.)	Anise Sage (Salvia guaranitica)	Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha)	Blazing Star Liatris pycnostachya
Redbud (Cercis Canadensis)	Shrimp plant (Justicia brandegeana)	Sultan's Turban (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii)	Winter shrimp plant (Justicia spp.)
Japanese Magnolia (Magnolia X soulangiana)	Fire bush (Hamelia patens)	Sasanqua (Camellia sasanqua)	Snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus)
Old fashioned camellias (Camellia japonica)	Button bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis)	Formosa lily (Lillium formosanum phillipinense)	Red maple Maple (Acer rubrum)
Native azalea (Rhododendron canescens)	Citrus spp.	Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)	Loquat, Japanese Plum (Eriobotrya japonica)
Red buckeye (Aesculus pavia)	Cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit)	Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)	Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana - Hamamelidaceae)
Coral bean (Erythrina herbacea)	Indian pink (Spigelia marilandica)	Firespike (Odontonema strictum)	Yellow Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens)
Cross vine (Bignonia capreolata)	Ham & eggs lantana (Lantana camara)	Flowering Maple (Abutilon spp.)	Sweet Olive (Osmanthus frangrans)
Lemon bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus)	Trumpet Creeper vine (Campsis radicans)	Winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima)

Story of Our Pets

We share our backyard wildlife habitat with 8 beloved pets (3 cats, 2 dogs and 3 cockatiels). All of our pets found us in different ways and now coexist with each other and with the wild inhabitants on Hummingbird Hill.

Hummer Banding Study Photos

Current Projects

~ Participating in a banding study (conducted by Linda Beall, a local bander) to collect data about the breeding habits of ruby throated hummingbirds and the migration behavior of several western species of hummingbirds. Click on the photo to see more about Hummingbird Banding and for photos of the hummingbirds.

~ Constructing nest boxes for cavity dwellers, especially wood ducks, screech owls, Prothonotary warblers and bluebirds.

~ Preserving the beauty and cleanliness of the Little Tchefuncte River and Pruden Creek and restoring our habitat to pre-Katrina condition.

~ Planting and maintaining several butterfly and hummingbird gardens.
~ Planting and preserving Native Plants with the other members of the Folsom Native Plant Society.

~ Recording information about and photographing the many box turtles that roam the habitat.

Due to the extremely high price of feed for our wildlife and the post-Katrina habitat restoration that we are currently undertaking, we are offering Little Tchefuncte Hummingbird Hill T-Shirts at our Cafepress Store. Several styles are available featuring our Hummingbird Kiss photograph and the purchase price includes a donation to help maintain our Wildlife Habitat. Click on the T-Shirt to see all of the Hummingbird Hill apparel.

All photographs on this site are copyright © Al & Yvonne Bordelon. All rights reserved.

Click on the banner below to see more CafePress Designs.

~ You may also want to visit one of our newest projects, our Naturally Native Creations Gallery and our Cafepress Shop to see our nature related creations and designs, including cards, official postage stamps, mugs, T-shirts, calendars, posters and much more.

Put Your Mouse on the hummingbird to see a Hummingbird Kiss.

Check Out Our Other Informational Nature Related Pages

Here are links to the other informational pages that we have written about nature, animals, the environment, gardening and our local culture and attractions. We hope you enjoy reading them. Keep checking back, because we are constantly updating the information and adding new topics and pages. Or just visit Naturegirl7 Lensmaster Page or Rio1 Lensmaster Page to see a complete listing.

You may also like to visit Naturally Native Lensography & Naturegirl7's 100 Lenses and Counting to see a lensography of all of our lenses.

Our new writing venture is as naturegirl7 on Hubpages. We're just getting started there, but are gradually adding pages about Louisiana and it's plants and wildlife.

Animals and Wildlife
We are blessed with a variety of wildlife in our habitat and we enjoy photographing them and writing about their behavior and habits. Here are some of the pages about the birds and animals that we encounter.

Birds
The Cardinal's Nest