Category: Hummingbird Feeders

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Hummingbird Feeders

When Should Feeders Be Taken Down?

It is getting to be the time of year when many people start seeing fewer hummingbirds. Also, cooler weather isn’t far off, so this means the hummingbirds will soon begin their migration. Have you been wondering when to take down your hummingbird feeders? If so, this post is written with you in mind.  
 
It is impossible to provide an exact date by which time hummingbird feeders should be taken down. This will largely depend on the area of the country where you live. 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 hummer. 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. 
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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Proper Hummingbird Feeder Maintenance

Many people have hummingbird feeders in their yard, but quite often they aren’t always sure how to properly maintain them. This post will help inform you about how to properly maintain your feeders, and thus hopefully ensure that you will have an abundance of hummingbirds visiting your yard on a regular basis. 
 
It is important to remember that hummingbird sugar solution is liquid and therefore extremely susceptible to fermentation, mold, or harmful bacteria. These things can put the health and lives of the hummingbirds in danger. 
 
Hummingbird feeders should be cleaned every two to three days. The feeder should be washed in very hot water, to wish you may add some vinegar or even a tiny amount of Clorox. The vinegar will help remove mold, and the Clorox should only be used for extremely difficult cleaning jobs. Whatever cleaning solution you choose to use, please be sure and rinse the feeder out thoroughly when you are finished! Any places that are hard to reach can be cleaned with the use of a bottle brush or pipe cleaners.
 
In very hot weather, which is considered to be temperatures above 60 degrees F., feeders should be cleaned every two days, and then fresh sugar solution should be added. The reason for this is because in very hot temperatures the pathogens in the sugar solution can multiply very rapidly.
 
It is impossible to state a specific date by which hummingbird feeders should be up. When to put up your hummingbird feeders will depend on where in the country you live. In the south the arrival of the hummingbirds may be as early as January or February. If you live in the north, the arrival of the hummingbirds will probably take place in April or May. The timing of when you should hang up your feeders will also depend largely on which hummingbird species are common where you live.
 
Many people mistakenly believe that leaving hummingbird feeders up for too long a period of time will prevent the hummingbirds from migrating. This is not true! A hummingbird has an instinctive urge to migrate and this is not based on whether feeders are up or not. The hummingbirds are most likely responding to light level changes rather than to food level changes.  
 
In some parts of the country hummingbirds have become year-round residents. On the West Coast, in the Southwest, and in a few places in the Southeast, hummingbirds can be found in the winter. So, if you live where hummingbirds have become year-round residents, leaving your feeder up could be life-sustaining to these birds.
 
Having hummingbird feeders placed around your yard is one of the easiest ways to attract hummingbirds to your yard. It is important to maintain proper feeder maintenance to ensure the health and well being of these birds. Also, doing so will help to ensure that these birds will return there each and every hummingbird season.
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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Why Hummingbirds Aren’t Visiting Your Feeders

Many people who put up hummingbird feeders may still not be attracting the birds or maybe they were at one time attracting the birds only to have them stop visiting their feeders. This is a situation that can be very complex. The information which follows should offer some insight into this matter.
 
One explanation could be that you live in an area that is a poor hummingbird habitat. This simply means that you live in an area that has few flowers, trees, or shrubs that hummingbirds like and therefore few of the birds visit the area.
 
Another explanation is that you live in too good a habitat. If there are too many plants, flowers, or shrubs in your area which attract hummingbirds, then the birds may have no need to visit the feeders in the area. Simply put, the natural food supply is available with such abundance that alternate food sources aren’t necessary. 
 
There may be hummingbirds in the area but they may not be interested in your feeders. It is possible for individual hummingbirds to develop their own particular feeding patterns and be influenced by their prior experiences.
 
Another simple explanation why there are no hummingbirds at your feeder is because it is breeding season. The birds may have gone elsewhere to do their breeding.
 
The feeding solution in your feeder may have fermented or gone sour. Generally speaking, the feeder should be cleaned every two to three days. In very hot weather, which is considered to be temperatures above 60 degrees F., feeders should be cleaned every two days, and then fresh sugar solution should be added. If you leave your feeders empty for too long or if your feeding solution has gone bad and you don’t change it out with fresh solution, then the birds may not return because of this.
 
You also may not be looking when the hummingbirds arrive. If there are few hummingbirds in your area, it would be quite easy for you to miss seeing them because they spend very little amounts of their time feeding.
 
Hummingbird feeders are a very common way to try and attract these birds. In order to draw hummingbirds to your feeders, you will want to hang the feeders near nectar-rich flowers, shrubs, and trees that the hummingbirds are instinctively drawn towards. Then you will have the best of all possible worlds, because the birds can choose between your hummingbird feeders or the flowers, trees, and shrubs that attract them.
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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

Sugar Water as Hummingbird Food

Probably the easiest way to attract hummingbirds to your yard is by filling your bird feeder with a sugar water hummingbird food.  This is a simple and nice gesture towards these extremely agile and pretty little creatures that come into your yard or garden.

Hummingbirds are amazing creatures that expend an astounding amount of energy every day. Hummingbirds are extremely small birds, typically weighing between 3 and 7 grams, but they require an abundance of energy in order to live. This is because their activity level is extremely high, and their biological clock runs incredibly fast. The heartbeat rate of a flying hummingbird may reach up to more than 1200 beats per minute!

It is due to their astonishing level of activity and also their heartbeat rate that hummingbirds must feed so very frequently, flying from flower to flower gathering nectar, which is the main source of their energy. Nectar contains, in addition to water, sucrose, glucose and fructose, all of which are different forms of sugar. So a sugar water hummingbird food is as close to their natural diet as you can get.

Hummingbirds are voracious eaters, and they have to eat between 5 and 14 times every hour. The stomach capacity of a hummingbird is quite small, and therefore it cannot hold too much food at once. That is why they must feed very frequently so as not to starve. At any given moment during the period of activity, they are only a few hours away from death by starvation! The need to be frequently acquiring food is a major survival issue for them.  This is especially true in today’s society when concrete jungles are extending and wiping out forests, trees and flowers.

A tipical human being normally eats about 2% to 4% of their own weight every day. The hummingbird must eat,under normal circumstances, more than 500% of its own body weight everyday just in order to survive! Providing a high-energy sugar water hummingbird food in your bird feeder is one of the best gestures of kindness that you can make towards these exquisite creatures of the air.

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Hummingbird Feeders

Estimating the Number of Hummingbirds at Your Feeders

Have you ever wondered how many hummingbirds were coming to your feeder? Did you think you had to count every bird to know the answer to this question? There is a very simple way to get this estimate and it is explained below. 

According to studies by noted hummingbird specialists, to estimate how many hummingbirds are visiting your feeders, multiply the number of hummingbirds you see at one time at your feeders and multiply that by six.

Isn’t that simple and straightforward? You can now quickly and easily estimate the number of hummingbirds that are visiting your feeders. I hope that you are fortunate enough to have many hummingbirds visiting them!