Hummingbirds of Connecticut

The Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden is a historic house museum set in the Litchfield Hills of western Connecticut, managed by Connecticut Landmarks. The formal parterre garden was designed by Eliza Ferriday and her daughter Caroline in the early 20th century and features historic-style roses, peonies, lilacs, and fragrant flowering trees and shrubs. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are common summer visitors throughout Litchfield County from late May through early September, drawn to the dense perennial borders.

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Connecticut's only zoo, Beardsley Zoo has been formally designated as part of the Pollinator Pathway network and operates seven butterfly and pollinator gardens throughout its grounds. The zoo has made a concerted commitment to native plant gardening, with plantings of milkweed, bee balm, cardinal flower, coneflower, and other natives that support butterflies, bees, and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. A 2023 M&T Bank grant funded additional pollinator gardens in the surrounding Bridgeport community.

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The Glebe House Museum is one of the most historically significant house museums in New England — an 18th-century parsonage with the only surviving Gertrude Jekyll garden design fully realized in North America. Jekyll, the legendary English plantswoman, designed the garden in 1926, and it was painstakingly restored according to her original hand-drawn plans starting in the 1980s. The garden features long herbaceous perennial borders in classic Jekyll style, open year-round for self-guided visits. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds visit the perennial borders from June through September.

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The White Memorial Conservation Center sits at the heart of the 4,000-acre White Memorial Foundation — the largest nature center and wildlife sanctuary in Connecticut, created in 1913. The Center encompasses forest, fields, wetlands, and 40 miles of trails. The diverse habitats — meadows, wetlands, and the boardwalk trail around Ongley Pond — attract a wide variety of breeding and migrating birds, including Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that breed in forest edges and meadows throughout the property from late May through September.

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