Nature & You: A fruitful protein dinner for hummingbirds

I always get a chuckle out of Anthony Oettinger's famous jingle: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

What is not so amusing, of course, is to have these bothersome fruit-eating insects buzzing around in your home's kitchen. I am here today to give you instructions on how to convert a "minus" into a "plus."

The trick is simple enough: Take those old, over-ripe bananas outside. Put them on top of an old plate, dish or pan. You'll want to suspend the contraption with stout string or cord such that night-prowling raccoons and opossums cannot gain entry to these tasty treats. You'll need to use a small scrap of small-mesh hardware cloth (i.e., "hail screen") to act as a shield to keep honeybees and paper wasps away from the fermenting fruit. Huge clouds of colorful butterflies will flock to your fruit tray if you position the hardware cloth such that the butterflies can lap up the fruit juices with their long unrolled tongues. Experiment. Keep twiddling on the thing until you get it to work.

Hummingbirds love to eat fruit flies; it is a protein-packed snack for these flower nectar feeders.

See? I told you that fruit flies are your friends.

Neil Garrison was the longtime naturalist at a central Oklahoma nature center. His email is atlatlgarrison@hotmail.com.