TIRED OF FEEDING THE HUMMINGBIRDS? HERE IS HELP SO YOU CAN QUIT WORKING SO HARD!

Let’s face it. We love the hummingbirds and we love watching them come to our
feeders.  They’re so cute and pretty. But the person who came up with
“you eat like a bird” never fed hummingbirds all season long. Mixing up
nectar for these sweet little birds took me through five sacks of sugar
last year.

You can buy mixes and ready-made nectar but that can get expensive
if you’re feeding lots of hummers. And you probably are—where there is
one there are twelve all coming to your feeder. It seems they all come at
once and even if you put out more than one feeder they all want to fight
over one.

Let Them Do More of the Work

One year I decided to take the hummingbirds off of assistance and let them
work for their meals. I don’t mind feeding them early and late in the season when there
aren’t many flowers. I think they get a little lazy when they can fly from one
feeder to another and not have to search out flowers to feed from. The feeders
are so easy to spot. I’ve watched them leave my neighbor’s feeder and come
straight over to mine. Long before people started putting out feeders the birds
found their food in wild plants and in gardens. They had a schedule of visits
to those plants just as they now have for our feeders. Occasionally I see them
visiting my trumpet vine and salvia but most of the time they seem to be meeting
and greeting at my deck hangers.

Some of Their Fave Flowers

If you want to work a little less and reduce their dependence on feeders, here are
some of their favorite plants. Any trumpet-like or tubular flower will attract
them, especially if red in color but they visit all colors. Some have large
flowers, like the trumpet vine, while others have much smaller tubular flowers
like those on penstemon and lamb’s ears.

Fuchsia

Salvia

Agastache

Bottlebrush

Lobelia

Penstemon

Bee balm

Russian sage

Honeysuckle

Jasmine

Butterfly bush

Weigela

Hollyhock

Cosmos

Go Ahead--Mix It Up

If you enjoy the hummers too much to let them rely solely on flowers, go ahead and
put out feeders. They will still enjoy the flowers too.  If the nectar in the feeder turns funky or
runs out before you can get it refilled, they will appreciate sipping from natural sources.

Here is the recipe for nectar:

1 part sugar to 4 parts water: ex: ¼ cup sugar to 1 cup water. (I make a batch
with 1 cup sugar to four cups of water so that I’m not making it every day.)

The water should always be boiled. Boil the water, turn the burner off and pour in the
sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Let it cool. Store what you don’t use
right away in the fridge.

When you have multiple bird feeders you go through a lot. In hot weather I change it
out daily. It tends to get warm and can cause mold in the feeder. You want to
keep it clean so our little birdie friends don’t get sick from our otherwise
act of kindness. I have a big problem with ants getting into the feeders. In
hot weather the moat dries up quickly and the ants pile in. I thwart them with
peppermint essential oil. I put it on a cotton ball and wipe down the poles
that the feeders hang on. It lasts about a day.

Do not put red food color in the nectar.  It isn’t necessary to attract them and it
has been suggested it can cause harm to hummingbirds. Most feeders are red plastic. The

red color of the feeder is enough to attract them. They definitely see in color.

Seeing Red

One summer I was sitting on my deck about ten feet from the
feeders. I wore a red bandana to tie my hair back and a hummingbird hovered
right over my head, probably marveling at the size of the red “flower.” Have
you ever had a hummingbird fly into your garage and then it couldn’t find its
way out? It can be awful hard to get one out of there. They are attracted to
that red knob attached to the end of the pull rope on the garage door
opener.  After it happened twice I realized why they were coming into the garage

and put some blue tape on it to cover up the red. No more hummers in the garage.