SOUTHAVEN, Mississippi—Southaven Alderman John David Wheeler has seen many birdfeeders over his years that look fancier than the ones he grew up around in the cotton-strewed Mississippi Delta. But the city’s new garden, designed to attract hummingbirds and named in memory of his mother, June, will be a permanent tribute to her vitality and to her devotion to nature.
“She loved to plant flowers and made sure to put food in the feeders constantly. I was around bird houses and hummingbird feeders when I was a young man before hummingbird feeders became cool,” Wheeler said.
The June Wheeler Hummingbird Garden, located in the southwest end of Snowden Grove Park, now has about 50 colorful perennials blossoming in about 20 curved segments arranged a little more than three months ago.
Future plans include up to 1,200 additional plants that local gardeners will root and maintain. That’s how June, a master gardener herself, would want it done, Wheeler felt. Fellow aldermen, some of whom knew June, announced the proclamation about the memorial at a recent formal meeting.
“Mom was a tireless, non-stopping worker,” Wheeler said. The alderman used to regularly travel with friends to barbecue-cooking contests across the nation, and June often accompanied them. “My friends couldn’t believe (it)—she never let up.”
Her love of nature embedded memories in her family; her inspiration yielded a new public garden; and a new garden sprouted a promising festival.
Just a Conversation
Still in its early days, the garden didn’t attract many live hummingbirds to the inaugural North Mississippi Hummingbird Festival held in Southaven, Mississippi, on Sept. 13. However, despite the absent eponym, the turnout and enthusiasm Wheeler observed for the new local attraction poises the festival to soar in the future, particularly with the additional flowers and hummingbirds scouting the sugarwater in ample feeders, Wheeler surmised.
Both the idea of a public garden for hummingbirds and a festival emerged simultaneously during a casual conversation between Wheeler and co-organizer Thomas Watson, owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Southaven, when the alderman visited Watson’s store one day. Both doubted they could pull off an event like this in such a short window of time, but they managed.
“We thought a good number of people would come, but it far exceeded expectations,” Wheeler said. “Turnout was fantastic,” Watson added.
In fact, the welcome crowd may have led to the event’s only big challenge. “We assigned a traffic officer, but we needed police for concert parking—it overflowed,” Wheeler said with a hint of pride..
Although Wheeler anticipated having an emotional response to the festival in real time because of its connection to his mom’s legacy, such feelings were delayed. “I was too busy running around with tasks during the event. But later, when it ended, I reflected and it hit me,” he said. “I took in the appreciation for the personal significance.”
‘The Birds Are Coming’
The garden path is designed for year-round use as a “place of peace and refuge,” Watson said, rather than existing for the sake of a single festival.
Organizers’ plans are to both expand the event and attract more visitors in the future. The event’s sizable attendance indicated that those objectives are achievable.
“We are going to add a second day starting next year and a third day possibly in the future,” Watson said, “and we believe we will keep free-entry admission.”
Southaven parks managers, city administrators, local restaurants and others coalesced quickly to execute the festival, Watson said.
Both men attributed the crowd’s size to young couples with young children, bird enthusiasts and master gardeners.
While millions of hummingbirds migrate south across the U.S. toward the Mexican border during late summer, attendees spotted “only one or two hummingbirds” that Saturday, Watson said. “But for the future, plans are in place for a big-time festival. The birds are coming.”
Flighty Education
Last year, Watson attended the longest-running hummingbird festival in Sedona, Arizona. The most important takeaway from that experience, he said, was the priority of scheduling plenty of guest speakers who are ornithologists.
“Vendors and food trucks, they are going to be at festivals regardless. But it’s the speakers that make the difference,” Watson said. “We needed speakers for our event, and its future success will depend on them.”
There is an instinctive yearning and curiosity for people to learn more details about hummingbirds, Watson observed.
“That’s because they are magical creatures,” he said. “People want to know how to connect the dots to nature and hummingbirds and themselves. They are the only birds that fly backwards, and they fly so far and overcome so much just to migrate—to just be birds.”
Southaven festival’s seven guest speakers offered information and tips ranging from topics on hummingbird migration and biology, to backyard habitats that attract birds, to pollinating plants.
‘Teaching Kids Is Vital’
Among the lines of people visiting the nearly 30 vendor stations, many were children.
On the morning of the festival, Ryan Riggin crouched to help his 3-year-old daughter, Collins, sported in a soccer uniform, get closer to the monarch butterflies circling inside the netted canopy.
“These are called monarchs, and are a common kind you will see,” the volunteer assisting the girl explained.
“We live near a big lake and recently there have been a ton of butterflies where we are, and Collins has become fascinated by them,” Riggin told the Mississippi Free Press. “So, when I learned about the festival, I thought it would be a good idea for her to come and learn more about them.”
Such sentiment was precisely what wildlife volunteer specialists wanted to satisfy—it aligned with their desire to better tune the public into valuing and caring for wild birds.
Both Sonia Andreas, a Mississippi State University ag-extension agent, and volunteer Cheryl Eubanks distributed bird literature. They and others guided visitors to their table to explain which specific plants birds seek out for nectar, as well as the metamorphosis process for caterpillars turning into butterflies.
“There has been a depletion of butterflies, thanks to a loss of their natural habitat with development, and of course, pesticides have contributed,” Eubanks said. “It’s important that we rebuild their populations to educate people on how butterflies are pollinators. Butterflies are key contributors to agriculture, and reminding or teaching kids this for their future is vital,” she said.
At a corresponding table, Eubank’s husband, Tom, assisted visitors peeking at monarchs in a canopy tent. His view enabled him to take note of the children’s curiosity and reactions to the butterflies on hand.
The wide eyes of Ida Hyland, 6, of Olive Branch, Mississippi, were focused on a singular monarch when a volunteer removed it from the netted canopy and shepherded it to the girl’s palms. She assigns nicknames to butterflies she chases at home—names like “banana”—based on their bodies’ colors, her grandparent said.
The butterfly swirled above the child’s head but didn’t stray as it was not mature enough yet for that journey, a volunteer explained.
“It’s fun helping with this, and it makes me keep up with what I’ve learned about plants and birds,” a watching Tom Eubanks said. “This is inspiring.”
Birdies and Bats
Elaine Drummell, 61, has considered herself a bird enthusiast for about the past 10 years. A Tunica County, Mississippi, resident, she adopted the hobby from her late father, who spent his retirement days arranging and, like clockwork, stocking feeders with food on his back porch.
“Whenever I went to his house to visit, I could find him dependably in a chair admiring bird visitors,” she said. “His favorites were doves. He admired their beauty and the whistling noises they made when they arrived, always in pairs.”
Drummell said Southaven’s festival drew her attendance as a birdie: She purchased a couple of new bird houses and some butterfly plants to add to her yard.
“The festival’s crowd gave me a sense of enthusiasm about being around others who appreciate what joy birds bring and the songs they sing,” Drummell said.
At another table, Hernando, Mississippi, resident Shea Stanton, a Mississippi Natural Resource Specialist who was one of the day’s forum speakers, talked to visitors at his table about the 45 species of bats in North Mississippi and biodiversity.
“Bats don’t just eat a lot of insects in our backyards,” he said. “They are a critical balancing act in the ecosystem,” citing one example of how they help mitigate parasites that ultimately destroy corn crops.
A bat enthusiast, Stanton offered informational bat posters to guests and spoke to many festivalgoers about DIY bat houses and other bat trivia.
‘Flights From the Heavens’
The variety of vendors at the event included typical ones, like an assortment of local honey for sale. But many were attracting prospective customers with complementary bird merchandise, including T-shirts, caps, hanging bird feeders and bird houses, as well as ceramic and colorful glass hummingbirds.
A plant nursery from New Albany, Mississippi, was stationed at the festival, aiming to sell native fauna particularly designed to attract hummingbirds.
Paul Robertson, a painter, and his wife, Melissa, traveled 200 miles from their home in Clinton, Mississippi, to sell an assortment of his bird watercolor paintings, inspired by biblical verses.
Paul said his works of art are designed to tap into many people’s celestial connection between birds and a desire for peace.
“Bird paintings are popular because there’s a spiritual connection,” Paul said. “They connect birds, their flights from the heavens and God. I am inspired to put verses and paintings of birds together, and I hope they inspire others.”
The Robertsons stayed busy with patrons checking out his creations.
“We were already intending on visiting the hummingbird festival at the Gulf Coast later this month, but when this one popped up, we jumped at the chance,” Paul said.
‘Understandably Magnetic’
More than 90 million Americans consider themselves to be “birders.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that the Americas sport about 360 different hummingbird species. Of those, between 20 and 30 fly in the U.S.; the most common hummingbird—especially in the South—is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
Carol Johnson, of Byhalia, Mississippi, attended the festival at Snowden Grove. She was a dedicated volunteer for 10 years at the former Hummingbird Migration and Nature Festival held annually on several thousand acres in Holly Springs, Mississippi, at the Strawberry Plains Audubon Center.
That festival, which drew thousands every year, paused during the pandemic and did not resume.
Scientists determine that hummingbirds can fly close to 30 miles per hour and fly low to the ground during migration to spot available nectar. During migration, a hummingbird’s heart beats up to 1,260 times a minute, and its wings flap between 15 and 80 times a second.
They are understandably magnetic, Johnson said, “Because it’s rare to be able to see something so small fly so fast, and then be able to back up. They are simply unique.”
Johnson was “thrilled,” she said, to see one emerge closer to her home.
“It will take speakers and, of course, hummingbirds for this event to get going, but feeders are in place and hummingbirds, once they find a place with their food, will come back as they migrate,” she said. “I’m hopeful this one will replace the one in Holly Springs, but that will take a little while.”
Johnson said a big attraction for visitors at the former festival in Marshall County, Mississippi, was the appearance of two licensed research specialists who would demonstrate banding— the method of capturing a bird, then wrapping small, numbered rings around the bird’s leg to both track its migration pattern and its weight and wing length after release.
Watson and Wheeler are more than familiar with the festival held in Holly Springs. “We have been in discussions with folks at Audubon and plan on incorporating some of what they do here,” Watson said.
Carl Branson, restoration ecologist at Audubon, said the center’s educational programming focus on hummingbird populations will be added to Southaven’s festival, but those involved still need to work out the exact details.
“Hummingbirds are popular because they are big pollinators that don’t sting,” he said. “But they are critical to biodiversity because they pollinate a wide range of plants. We educate visitors on how they can help by planting native plants such as hostas, red buckeyes and Black-eyed Susans.”
The destruction of habitats, especially in the northeast and on the West Coast, because of urbanization has led to a loss in population in some of the species, though the Red-Throated Hummingbird has seen a resurgence, Branson said.
“Birding has grown since COVID, when interests in outdoor activities took off,” Branson said. “And that has helped. People should know that it doesn’t take a lot of work to make a big difference.”
To learn more about the North Mississippi Hummingbird Festival or to keep an eye out for next year’s event, visit northmshummingbirdfestival.org or find the festival on Facebook.