Category: Hummingbird Feeders

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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Tips for the Winter Feeding of Hummingbirds

In the winter, you will want to only fill your feeder half-full, due to a decrease in the number of birds that will likely be visiting your feeder. You will want to change the nectar weekly, rather then every 3-4 days, to ensure that the nectar has not spoiled. A spoiled food source will drive the birds away and it will be hard to get the birds to once again trust your food supply.
 
In order to prevent the nectar from freezing, you may want to bring the feeder in at night.  This will help ensure that nectar solution will remain liquefied when the feeder is once again placed outside and therefore the birds will be able to get a drink of the nectar whenever they need one. 
 
In very cold weather, many people choose to alternate feeders by having two of them. This allows the warm one to be put out at mid-day and the cold one can be brought in the house.
 
There are many other alternative methods to help ensure that the nectar solution stays warm or to keep snow off of the feeder. These include the following: heat lamps, electric pipe wrap, and other creative solutions that people have developed. 
 
Lastly, your winter feeder should include a perch; this will allow the bird to feed without expending much energy as well as enabling you to have a close-up view for observation and photography.
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Hummingbird Feeders

Are There More Winter Hummingbirds?

In the past 10-15 years, hummingbird feeding has become increasingly more popular and therefore many more people have placed hummingbird feeders in their yard and are maintaining them. The increased number of feeders means that people “forget” and leave their feeders up past Labor Day. Many people believe that to be the traditional date for taking down hummingbird feeders, but there is no such thing. Let me explain.
 
It is impossible to provide an exact date by which time hummingbird feeders should be taken down. It is believed that migrating hummingbirds may be helped by feeders that are left up until at least two weeks have passed since seeing your last hummingbird. Contrary to what many people believe, hummingbirds will migrate even if your hummingbird feeders are not taken down. Males generally migrate several weeks ahead of immature hummingbirds, which are also known as new hatchlings, and females. When migration occurs is determined by a change in the length of the day or photoperiod. 
 
We all know the power and reach of the Internet and it has certainly made a difference in this matter. Due to the Internet, people have become more aware of the existence of winter hummingbirds. The Internet has also made it much easier for people to learn of the opinions of hummingbird experts and then to contact them via e-mail.
 
The increase in warm weather during the past several years may explain why vagrant hummingbirds have wandered further than normal. Habitat destruction may also offer an explanation why more hummingbirds have been forced to wander. The traditional wintering grounds of the hummingbird, in the tropics, may have been destroyed thus forcing them to wander.  
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Hummingbird Feeders

A Fatal Sting

Did you know that a single sting from a bee or wasp can be fatal to a hummingbird? Well, it can be and the reason for this is because the hummingbird is so tiny and as a result the hummingbird has very little body mass to help it absorb the venom that is injucted into the hummingbird’s body as a result of the sting. 
 
This should serve as another reason why you need to keep the bees and wasp away from your hummingbird feeders. If you want more information on how to solve this problem, please refer to the following link below.
 
http://hummingbirdsformom.com/hummingbird_feeders/solving-the-problem-of-bees-and-wasps/trackback/
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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

What Not to Use in Your Hummingbird Feeders

When wanting to make your own nectar solution, you should never use honey, artificial sweeteners, or food coloring when making nectar.  These may be harmful to the birds. 
 
Honey should not be used to feed hummingbirds because it attracts bees and favors the growth of a black fungus that causes a fatal liver and tongue disease in hummingbirds.
 
The only type of sugar that should be used when making your own nectar is white granulated cane sugar because this is very similar to flower nectar and won’t harm the hummingbirds. Never use brown sugar, honey or artificial sweeteners!
 
Red dye or food coloring is unnecessary and also thought to be unhealthy for the hummingbirds. There is a great deal of debate on the issue of whether or not the food coloring is actually harmful to hummingbirds or not, but my personal opinion is why even take the chance of harming the hummingbirds that you are trying to attract.
 
  • Red dye has no nutrient value so why feed it the hummingbirds.
  • All red dyes are categorized as "xenobiotics" the same as other pollutants and stress the metabolism accordingly [Kuno & Mizutani, 2005].
  • Red dye masks fermentation making it difficult to assess the freshness of a mixture, encouraging users to risk keeping the mixture beyond its safety margin since it looks okay to them.
  • A properly designed feeder attracts no additional hummingbirds by coloring the water, so it is a useless additional ingredient. They are attracted to red flowers, not red nectar, so the feeder, not the feed, should be red. In comparison tests of dyed & undyed nectars offered side-by-side in identical feeders, the non-dyed was visited more often.
  • The potential carcinogenicity, DNA damage, lowered of fertility rates, increase in tumors, lethargy, & other health problems associated with mammals given doses of Red40 far lower than are in manufactured nectar powders, are not worth risking on such small birds.
 
The bulleted items listed above came from the following web address: http://www.paghat.com/reddye.html
 
Most feeders on the market to day have red on them somewhere and this is enough to attract the hummingbirds.
 
Making your own nectar solution is simple and easy to do, but make sure when you do so that you don’t accidentally harm the hummingbirds that you wish to attract. Remember, you should never use honey, artificial sweeteners, or food coloring when making nectar. I hope that this post has helped to inform you on this subject. 
 
 
 
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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Videos

Attracting Hummingbirds

In this video Mark Viette’s explains why using many feeders thoughout the garden is a good idea and why he uses clear nectar in his hummingbird feeders.  I hope this video will encourage you to have a wide variety of plants and use many hummingbird feeders in your garden. Enjoy the hummingbirds everyone!