The Best Time Of Year To Attract Black-Chinned Hummingbirds To Your Yard

While you may love sipping a cup of coffee every morning to start your day, it's even more enjoyable to look outside your window and see a hummingbird or two fluttering around while doing so. They tend to come out early in the morning and the evening, and attracting them to your yard can be worth it. Not only are they fun to watch, they're also beneficial to your yard and can be very useful if you want to start a pollinator garden. Although there are 350 species of hummingbirds, one of the most interesting is the common black-chinned hummingbird. For most states in the western U.S., you can keep an eye out for them between April and August.

This distinctive hummingbird has a more subdued appearance than others, but its smaller head, slender body, and less vibrant colors make them an intriguing variety to watch. Like most hummingbirds, they are migratory, so you'll need to look for them at the right place and time if you want to catch a glimpse of them.

In the summer, black-chinned hummingbirds are busy breeding and can be found in many western states, including California, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Texas. They can also be found in British Columbia. For the winter, they go south and spend time in western Mexico. If you're in an area where there's a lot of black-chinned hummingbird activity, you've already won half the battle. 

If you want to spot these hummingbirds when they're in your area, there are many things that you can do to improve your odds. A great first step is to ensure there's a good place for hummingbirds to get water. Installing a water feature with cascading water will give hummingbirds a great place to drink and bathe and will make it more likely that they'll stop by. Other than this, adding flowers that hummingbirds absolutely love can also be helpful. Try planting flowers that are known to attract these hummingbirds such as desert honeysuckle, thistle, larkspur, chuparosa, and prickly pear.

Adding more shrubbery and plants to your yard can also give hummingbirds more places to take cover and perch. This will help them feel more comfortable spending some time in the area. Finally, consider adding several hummingbird feeders to your yard, and be sure to keep them as clean as you can. Change the hummingbird nectar daily in the summer and rinse the feeder with clean water on a regular basis to make hummingbirds more likely to take interest.

Hummingbirds are very beneficial to have in your garden because they pollinate so many different plants and flowers. This helps these plants reproduce and can go a long way toward improving your garden and helping your yard feel warm and inviting. Their presence is incredibly important for an ecosystem, and around 8,000 plants across North and South America depend on hummingbirds for pollination. 

Black-chinned hummingbirds are also worth attracting to your yard simply because they look beautiful, and it's fun to watch them dart around. They're smaller than other hummingbirds and have interesting colors that, while duller and less vibrant than those of other hummingbirds, make them unique and distinctive. They have green backs with a grayish white on their underbelly. Their long black bills and chins are also unique, and their purple necks make them seem particularly exotic and mysterious.

Another thing that's particularly interesting about these tiny birds is that they don't hesitate to visit urban settings. They are incredibly adaptable and don't spend all of their time in rural areas. Even if you live in the city, there's still a great chance that they'll show up — especially if you use some of the tips above to make your home and yard more attractive to them.