Category: Hummingbird Food

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Hummingbird Food

What Makes a Perfect Flower to a Hummingbird?

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The flower must provide a large amount of nectar with a substantial sugar content to support the demanding hummingbird life style. The sugar content should average about 26 percent; amazingly enough this is double what you get in a soft drink.   The nectar should not be too concentrated and sticky because hummingbirds rely on a long tube-like tongue to draw nectar into their mouth through what is known as wicking action or the force that brings water up a straw when you stick the straw in a glass.
 
These flowers tend to have red or orange petals or bracts, which help make them easily noticeable to the hummingbird at a long-distance away and thus case the hummingbird to take notice of it.
 
 
The flowers are often long and tubular and therefore a long narrow bill and tongue are required to extract the nectar.
 
The flowers often hang down and point downward thus providing a hovering bird has the easiest access to it.
 
 
These flowers generally have long stamens that will cause the pollen to be deposited on the forehead of the unsuspecting bird.
 
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Hummingbird Food Hummingbird Videos

Hummingbird Flowers

Don’t let the fact that you have a limited amout of space, like a small deck , keep you from trying to attract  hummingbirds, because it can be successfully done.  You just have plant the right types of flowers to attract them.   This video shows them eating from Fuschia triphylla, ‘Lady in Red’ salvia, Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia), and calibrachoa (Million Bells).  

I found it quite interesting to see the hummingbirds up close and feeding from so many flowers.  Usually, they feed so quickly that it isn’t something you can often fully appreciate.  Enjoy!

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Hummingbird Feeders Hummingbird Food

What Not to Use in Your Hummingbird Feeders

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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 Food

Flowers Which Attract Hummingbirds

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If you are a hummingbird enthusiast, you will know that they love brightly colored flowers. These vary from area to area but Salvia, Buddleia, Nicotiana and Callistemon (Bottle Brush) are universally popular.
 
The next option, thriving between zones 2-9, is Delphiniums. They can grow up to five feet tall, so they are best used near the back of the garden or close to the house. These flowers come in a variety of colors.
 
You should plant a garden with a long season of overlapping bloom, including plants such as the petunia, annual red salvia, autumn sage and shrimp plants, or the firebush.
 
You should plant flowers and plants which are native to your area of the country. You can find out information concerning the specific plants that grown in your area and attract hummingbirds by talking with someone from a plant nursery that is located where you live.
 
Hummingbirds have long curved beaks, designed to suck nectar from plants with bell shaped flowers. The hummingbird will feed between 5-8 times per hour or approximately every ten minutes. Each feeding only last about 30 seconds in length. They also eat small insects and pollen for protein. 
 
 
Flowers are a great way to attract hummingbirds to any garden. The specific flowers listed here are just suggestions and will very greatly depending on the area where you live. If you want to know specific suggestions as to what you can plant to attract hummingbirds in your area, please talk with someone from your local plant nursery who can answer any questions you may have on this matter.
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Hummingbird Food

How Much Nectar Does a Hummingbird Need?

It can often seem like hummingbirds eat non-stop, but this is simply not true. Yes, hummingbirds do have an extremely high metabolic rate, but they do not eat until they are full at every opportunity. So, what determines the amount of nectar that hummingbird needs to eat?
 
The amount of nectar that a hummingbird must intake each day is dependent on a number of factors including activity level, air temperature, quality of available resources, and time of year. The hummingbird will require one and a half times its body weight in nectar to meet its daily energy needs.
 
 
When it comes to selecting a food source, what is most important is the quantity and quality of the nectar which is available. Whenever choosing a flower, the hummingbird will select the flower with the highest nectar output and the richest concentration of sugars, regardless of the shape or color of the flower. Also more important than the color of the flower is how the nectar taste.
 
During daylight hours, the hummingbird will eat frequently for short periods of time. A hummingbird will feed between 5-8 times per hour with each feeding lasting about 30 seconds in length. At night, the hummingbird will eat as heavily as the nectar supply will allow. The hummingbird may store a third of its weight in nectar to ensure that it will survive its overnight fast while maintaining its normal resting metabolic rate.