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The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources issued the following press release:

Hummingbirds, which artist John J. Audubon called "glittering fragments of the rainbow," are once again darting around flowers and feeders in South Carolina, say state natural resources officials.

"Hummingbirds are as fascinating to study as they are beautiful to watch," said Laurel Barnhill, bird conservation coordinator with the S.

C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in Columbia. Barnhill encourages South Carolina residents to landscape with flowers, hang out a feeder and invite hummingbirds to lunch: "In return, they’ll entertain you with their antics and add a little color to your life."

Thousands of South Carolina residents enrich their summers by feeding hummingbirds. Male ruby-throated hummingbirds, which feature the characteristic metallic blood-red throat bib, began showing up in South Carolina in late March, with their white-throated mates arriving from the tropics about a week later. Most hummingbird activity around feeders, however, does not really pick up until midsummer. Do not despair if you had hummers at your feeder early during the migration period and now there are none. Some of those birds continued flying north and others stayed here but are busy raising young and taking advantage of plentiful natural food sources.

Under natural conditions, hummingbirds obtain sugar by eating the nectar of flowers and the sap of trees. Homeowners can duplicate this part of a hummer’s diet by placing a sugar solution in a hummingbird feeder,tiffany necklaces, with the added attraction of getting to witness the antics of one of nature’s most delightful and colorful birds. "Hummingbirds consume 50 percent of their body weight daily in sugar, which makes it one of the most important food items in a hummer’s diet," Barnhill said.

A wide variety of hummingbird feeders are now available on the market. If you have used the feeders in previous seasons, Barnhill said, be sure to wash the hummingbird feeder with hot water and vinegar or hot water and bleach to destroy all mildew and mold left over from last year, then rinse thoroughly with clean water. This is the most important thing to do to make these birds’ stay in the Palmetto State more enjoyable.

The sugar-water mixture for the feeders should be a ratio of four parts water to one part sugar; an easy-to-remember mixture is one cup of sugar per quart of water. This solution closely approximates the sugar content of nectar. Red dye is unnecessary-the red coloring on the feeder will suffice. Honey should not be used as a sweetener because honey-water solutions often harbor a fungus that can be harmful to the hummer.

When making the sugar-water mixture, Barnhill advises boiling the sugar and water solution for about three minutes-this will help retard fermentation. Store all unused solution in the refrigerator, and keep the feeder mold-free by keeping fresh nectar in it at all times. As soon as the solution becomes cloudy,tiffany key rings, discard it.

"If you are putting a feeder up for the first time, don’t be discouraged if hummingbirds don’t come right away," Barnhill said. "It may take a while for them to find it and establish a visitation routine." Be sure to keep the solution fresh especially as the days get warmer, because birds will not be attracted to a fermented solution.

Hummingbirds are attracted to tubular red flowers like red salvia, bee balm, trumpet creeper, cypress vine, crossvine, firecracker vine, red buckeye,tiffany rings, native azaleas (Oconee, flame and plumleaf) and woodbine, and they will readily seek out others such as hibiscus,tiffany pendants, hollyhock, petunia and impatiens. Hummingbirds also feed on small insects.

Feeders can be left up well into the fall season, and this will not cause the hummers to delay their migration. Migratory birds base their departure date primarily on the changing day length, not on the availability of food. Actually, leaving feeders up into the fall will help the late migrants that stop for a rest on their way back to Mexico and Central America as their natural food sources will be limited at that time.

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It’s a teenage girl’s fantasy — she meets a handsome movie star,discount tiffany, and they fall in love.

For teens in Mt. Lebanon, that dream has never seemed so tantalizingly within reach.

Over the next three months, Taylor Lautner, 18, made famous by his role as Jacob Black, a werewolf in the "Twilight" film series, and made even more famous by his washboard abs, will be filming a movie in Mt. Lebanon and other locations in and around Pittsburgh.

Young girls, some in cars, most on foot,tiffany necklaces, have become a common sight around Mt. Lebanon’s Virginia Manor neighborhood, hoping to catch a glimpse of the reportedly unattached teen heartthrob.

"They are all hoping he will look out the window and fall in love," said Rachel Schuchman, who works at The Coffee Tree Roasters on Beverly Road.

Ms. Schuchman, at 24, is a few years older than the bulk of Mr. Lautner’s fan base. Instead of pining for him, she serves cold coffee drinks to young girls on their way to or from the filming location.

"It’s just craziness. Little girls everywhere," she said.

Mr. Lautner’s new movie, "Abduction," directed by John Singleton, is a thriller about a young man who discovers the people who raised him are not his real parents.

Seated around tables in The Coffee Tree Roasters on a recent afternoon,tiffany pendants, five teenage girls discussed Mr. Lautner’s physique as the teenage boys sitting with them listened in, looking uncomfortable or even intimidated.

The girls said they had already driven or walked by the film locations without seeing Mr. Lautner. But it’s summer, school is out and one of their age group’s biggest celebrities is in their town. They plan to go back.

And besides, Chickie Brandy, 15, said she had heard a story about Mr. Lautner coming outside and speaking to a friend of hers after she sat across from his house for two hours. That could happen to them, they theorize.

Pittsburgh has played host to movie stars before — Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Douglas. But few, if any, have inspired this degree of fan frenzy.

The Pittsburgh Film Office says it has received more calls — many from older women,tiffany rings, likely phoning on behalf of their daughters — than for any other star who’s come here on location. The inquiries started "as soon as it was announced that he would be in town," said Dawn Keezer, director of the film office.

The young actor’s rise to fame has been quick, due to the extreme popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s "Twilight" book series and the movie adaptations.

"He’s the heartthrob right now," said Marissa Lutz, 15, who lives in the same neighborhood as the film shoot.

She and her mother, Anne Lutz Zacharias, have known for a few months that Mr. Lautner would be filming in their neighborhood — some family friends turned down an offer to have scenes shot at their house. At least two other neighbors, however, agreed to let the film crews in.

Marissa knows one person who believes she spotted the actor as he walked from a cab into a house, and she knows many more who are going to somewhat extreme measures to try to catch a glimpse of him.

At one point, a rumor started that Mr. Lautner jogs in the neighborhood at 4:30 a.m. Marissa said some of her friends have gotten out of bed before dawn in hopes of spotting him, but to no avail.

"We don’t even know if it’s true, but he has to work out at some point," she said.

She’s not planning on waking up before dawn to look for him, but Marissa does want to see him while he’s in her neighborhood. She went to an extras casting call at Carnegie Mellon University last week, along with 2,000 other people.

She hasn’t gotten a call back yet, but she’s hoping to be included in a rumored pool party scene.

"I think it’s fun," Mrs. Zacharias said. "It will make for good stories."

The frenzy could move to the northern suburbs next week, when filming shifts to Hampton High School.

Barbara Vancheri contributed. Kaitlynn Riely: kriely@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1707.