Garden Detective

Yesterday's column was about birds. So it's kind of eerie that yesterday a Levittown woman was led out of her house in a hazardous materials suit and brought to the hospital, where she was found to be infested with bird mites.

Her chest and pelvis are covered with the mites, which look like tiny, crawling black specks. Ordinarily, they live in bird droppings. But somehow they made it into her second-floor bathroom, outside of which birds apparently were nesting in a vent.

I'm so incredulous, I'm totally speechless. I can't even comment on it. But, according to birdmites.org, this isn't as rare an occurrence as you might think.

"I feel biting, just like someone pricking you with a needle, and you can feel them crawl, like a piece of hair is tickling you," the woman said from her hospital room yesterday. And now she's complaining of unrelated chest pains. I'm getting chest pains just thinking about it.

I know you're out there. Skulking about behind bushes, tiptoeing and whistling, binoculars and cameras in hand.

We'd love to see your photos. Not only can you upload them here, but you can do a different kind of bird watching -- the kind where you don't have to leave your house.

Share your photos and view those of your fellow bird watchers.

Now on to practical matters: How to attract hummingbirds to your garden. Lots of folks plant annuals and perennials specifically to attract birds, hummingbirds in particular, similar to creating a butterfly garden. Here are some plants that will help create a sanctuary in your yard.

Plant these once, and they'll ensure feathered visitors for years to come:

Agastache (Hummingbird mint)
Bee Balm
Canna
Cardinal flower (wonder where the name came from!)
Columbine
Coral bells
Foxglove
Hosta
Lupine
Penstemon
Yucca

Fill in the blanks with these annuals:

Fuchsia
Impatiens
Petunia
Salvia

I have a lovely Campsis radicans (Hummingbird vine) climbing the arbor over my garden gate. I could just set up a camera on a tripod and get lots of great shots of visitors without leaving my yard.

Please add your suggestions below.