10 Feeder Mistakes That Send Hummingbirds Elsewhere
If the hummingbirds have stopped coming, the feeder is usually the reason. Here are the ten mistakes that matter most, the biology behind each and the simple fix.
Hummingbirds are loyal. A bird that finds a good feeder will visit it many times a day and return to the same yard the following spring, often within a few days of the date it arrived the year before. Banding records show individual birds coming back to the same garden for five, six and seven years running.
But they are also fussy, and they have reason to be. A hummingbird in flight burns energy faster than any other warm-blooded animal. It feeds every ten to fifteen minutes through the day and drinks more than its own weight in nectar. It cannot afford to waste trips on a feeder that is empty, sour, guarded by a bully or swarming with wasps.
So it keeps a mental map of every food source on its route and drops the ones that disappoint. When a feeder that was busy in June hangs untouched in July, the birds have not vanished. They have made a decision.
The good news is that nearly every cause is within your control, and most fixes take five minutes. Here are the ten most common mistakes, starting with what goes into the feeder.
Read all the way to the end. The last mistake has nothing to do with the feeder.
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The recipe
1. Getting the sugar ratio wrong
Guilty of this one?The standard recipe is one part plain white sugar to four parts water, which gives a solution of roughly 20 percent sugar. That is no accident. The flowers hummingbirds pollinate in the wild produce nectar that averages a little over 20 percent sugar, most of it sucrose, and white table sugar is pure sucrose.
Mix it weaker, at one to five or one to six, and the birds get less energy per visit. They will still drink it, but a richer source down the street will win.
AdvertisementMix it much stronger and the solution becomes thick, harder to lap up quickly and faster to ferment. A slightly richer mix of one to three is acceptable in cold snaps and during migration, when birds need to fuel up fast, but there is no reason to use it all summer.
Measure by volume: a quarter cup of sugar to one cup of water. Stir it into hot tap water until it dissolves completely. Boiling is not required if your tap water is safe to drink, though it helps the sugar dissolve.
AdvertisementThe fixMix one part plain white sugar with four parts water and let it cool before filling. Store any extra in a clean jar in the refrigerator for up to a week. -
The color
2. Adding red dye
Guilty of this one?Hummingbirds are drawn to red. That part is true. Their eyes are most sensitive toward the red end of the spectrum, and many of the flowers they depend on are red or orange. But the color they need is on the feeder, not in the liquid. Natural nectar is as clear as water.
AdvertisementAlmost every feeder sold has red ports, a red base or a red cap, and that is plenty to catch the eye of a bird passing overhead.
Red food coloring adds nothing a hummingbird can use. A bird that drinks its own weight in dyed nectar every day takes in a dose of dye, relative to its size, far beyond anything the coloring was tested for. No one has shown that it is safe at that level, and there is no benefit to set against the risk. Every major bird conservation organization gives the same advice: leave it out.
The same goes for the red commercial mixes. You are paying extra for sugar, dye and preservative when sugar and water do the job better.
AdvertisementThe fixUse clear nectar. If the red on your feeder has faded in the sun, tie a red ribbon to the hanger or touch up the base with red nail polish and let it dry fully. -
The sweetener
3. Using honey or brown sugar
Guilty of this one?It seems kinder to offer something more natural than white sugar. It is not. For a hummingbird, refined white sugar is the natural choice, because it is the same sucrose that flowers make.
Honey is a mix of different sugars, and once it is diluted with water it ferments quickly and supports the growth of bacteria and fungus. Birds that drink it can develop a fungal infection of the mouth and tongue, and a hummingbird with a swollen tongue cannot feed.
AdvertisementBrown sugar, raw sugar, turbinado and molasses all contain iron. Hummingbirds are extremely efficient at absorbing iron because their natural diet has so little of it, and they have no way to get rid of the excess. It builds up in the liver and poisons them slowly.
Powdered sugar contains cornstarch, which feeds fermentation. Artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes have no calories at all, and a bird that fills up on them starves with a full stomach. Fruit juice spoils within hours.
AdvertisementThe fixPlain white granulated sugar only, cane or beet. Leave the honey, the brown sugar and the sweetener packets in the kitchen. -
The big one
4. Not cleaning often enough
Guilty of this one?This is the mistake that empties more feeders of birds than all the others combined. Sugar water is an ideal growth medium. Within days in warm weather it clouds with yeast and bacteria, and black mold takes hold in the ports and seams.
Yeast turns the sugar to alcohol and then to acid. The birds taste it at once and leave. Mold is worse than off-putting, because it can cause the same tongue and throat infections that honey does.
AdvertisementHow fast it turns depends on temperature. Above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, change the nectar every day. In the 80s, every two days. In the 70s, every three or four days. In cool weather below 70, once a week is the outer limit. If the liquid looks cloudy, or you see black specks or floating strings, it is already overdue.
Topping up does not count. Empty the feeder, take it fully apart and scrub every surface with hot water and a bottle brush, using a small port brush or pipe cleaner for the feeding holes. For mold, soak the parts for an hour in one part white vinegar to two parts water, then rinse well. Avoid dish soap unless you rinse until no trace remains.
AdvertisementIf you would not drink it, neither should they.
The fixFill the feeder only as full as the birds will empty in two or three days. A half-filled feeder that is always fresh beats a brimming one that has gone sour. -
The spot
5. Hanging it in full sun
Guilty of this one?A feeder in direct afternoon sun is a small greenhouse. The nectar inside can run twenty degrees hotter than the air, and at those temperatures it ferments in a day, sometimes in a single afternoon.
Heat causes a second problem. As the air in a bottle-style feeder warms, it expands and pushes nectar out through the ports. The drips attract ants, bees and wasps, and they coat the outside of the feeder in a sticky film that grows mold.
AdvertisementDeep shade is not ideal either. A feeder hidden under a dense canopy is hard for passing birds to spot, and hummingbirds like to see what is around them while they drink.
The best position gets morning sun, which makes the red parts glow and warms the nectar after a cool night, and shade from noon onward. The east side of a house, or the edge of a tree's canopy, usually provides it. Hang the feeder about five feet off the ground, within ten to fifteen feet of a shrub or small tree where the birds can perch and take cover.
AdvertisementThe fixMove the feeder to a spot with morning sun and afternoon shade. If you have no shade, clip a weather dome above it, and change the nectar daily in hot spells. -
The numbers
6. Putting up only one feeder
Guilty of this one?Hummingbirds do not share. In the wild a patch of flowers holds only so much nectar, and a bird that defends a good patch eats well. That instinct does not switch off at a feeder that never runs dry.
AdvertisementA dominant bird, usually an adult male but sometimes a female or a pushy youngster, will claim a single feeder, perch where he can watch it and dive at every other hummingbird that approaches. Rufous Hummingbirds are notorious for this and will take over a yard for days during migration. Ruby-throats are nearly as fierce. You end up feeding one bird while eight others are driven off.
The answer is to give him more than he can guard. He cannot be in two places, and he cannot defend what he cannot see.
Several small feeders also stay fresher than one large one, because each is emptied sooner.
One bird cannot guard a feeder he cannot see.
The fixHang two or three small feeders out of sight of one another, such as one in the front yard, one in back and one around the corner of the house. In late summer, when numbers peak, add another.Advertisement -
The pests
7. Ignoring ants and wasps
Guilty of this one?Ants find a feeder by scent, lay a trail and arrive by the hundreds. They crawl into the ports, drown in the nectar and foul it. Hummingbirds will not drink from a feeder with ants floating in it.
Bees, wasps and yellowjackets are a bigger nuisance in late summer, when their colonies are at full size and natural nectar is drying up. They crowd the ports and chase the birds, which are wary of being stung.
AdvertisementBoth problems have simple mechanical answers. An ant moat is a small cup that hangs between the hook and the feeder. Fill it with plain water and the ants cannot cross. Saucer-style feeders, in which the nectar sits in a shallow dish below the ports, keep the liquid out of reach of an insect's short tongue while a hummingbird's long one reaches it easily.
Color matters too. Bees and wasps are strongly attracted to yellow, and many feeders come with yellow plastic flowers around the ports. Do not put oil, grease or petroleum jelly on the pole or hanger. It gets onto feathers, and a bird with oiled feathers cannot fly or stay warm.
AdvertisementThe fixFit an ant moat filled with plain water above every feeder, switch to a saucer-style feeder with no yellow parts, and fix any leak the day you spot it. -
The glass
8. Placing it near a window
Guilty of this one?Glass kills hundreds of millions of birds in the United States every year, and hummingbirds are frequent victims. They fly fast, they fly low among houses and gardens, and when a rival or a hawk appears they leave a feeder at full speed in whatever direction looks open.
To a bird, a window does not look like a barrier. It reflects sky and trees, or it shows a clear route through the house to a window on the far side. A hummingbird that hits glass at speed is usually killed or stunned.
AdvertisementDistance decides the outcome. A feeder within three feet of the glass is safe, because a bird leaving it has not built up enough speed to hurt itself. A feeder thirty feet or more away gives birds room to see the house as a solid object and steer around it. The danger zone is everything in between.
Window feeders that attach to the pane with suction cups are among the safest of all, and they bring the birds within inches of your chair.
AdvertisementThe fixHang the feeder either within three feet of the window or thirty feet or more from it. On problem windows, apply decals or strips of tape to the outside of the glass, spaced no more than two inches apart. -
The timing
9. Taking it down too early
Guilty of this one?Many people take their feeders down on Labor Day in the belief that leaving them up will tempt hummingbirds to stay too long and be caught by the cold. It will not. No feeder has ever stopped a healthy hummingbird from migrating.
The urge to move south is set by hormones that respond to shortening days. Adult male Ruby-throats begin leaving the northern states in late July and early August, when gardens are still full of flowers and feeders. Females follow, and the young of the year go last, well into September and sometimes October.
AdvertisementThose late travelers are the ones that need you most. Before a long flight a hummingbird feeds almost without pause and can nearly double its body weight in fat. A Ruby-throat crossing the Gulf of Mexico flies about 500 miles without a stop. Birds passing through your yard in September hatched hundreds of miles to the north, and a full feeder on a cold morning is a real help.
AdvertisementSpring timing matters as well. Put feeders out a week or two before your first birds are due: late February or early March along the Gulf Coast, early to mid April across the middle of the country, and early May in the northern states and southern Canada.
No feeder has ever kept a healthy hummingbird from migrating.
The fixLeave feeders up for two weeks after you see your last bird. On the Pacific coast, in the desert Southwest and along the Gulf Coast, where hummingbirds spend the winter, keep at least one going all year. -
The garden
10. Spraying for insects
Guilty of this one?A hummingbird cannot live on sugar. Nectar supplies energy and almost nothing else. The protein, fat and minerals that build muscle, feathers and eggs come from insects and spiders: gnats, midges, aphids, fruit flies, mosquitoes and tiny wasps, caught in midair or picked from leaves and webs.
AdvertisementA nesting female catches them by the hundreds each day, and her chicks are raised largely on insects. A yard with a full feeder and no insects is a place to stop for a drink, not a place to breed.
Sprays hurt in two ways. Broad-spectrum insecticides and mosquito fogging wipe out the small flying insects hummingbirds eat. Systemic products, including the neonicotinoids sold for roses and other ornamentals, are taken up by the whole plant and appear in its nectar, so the bird drinks them directly.
AdvertisementSpiders are a loss too. Hummingbirds eat them, rob their webs for trapped insects and build their nests with the silk.
The fixPut up with a few bugs. Knock aphids off with a jet of water, leave the cobwebs under the eaves and cancel the yard fogging. Ask at the nursery whether plants were treated with systemic insecticide before you buy.
The short version
Fresh nectar, clean feeders and a shady spot solve most problems. Make a small batch of one part white sugar to four parts water, change it before it clouds and keep it clear. The birds will do the rest.
If you change only one habit, make it the cleaning. A spotless feeder with plain sugar water will outdraw the most expensive feeder on the market filled with week-old nectar, every time. Tie the job to something you already do, such as watering the pots or putting out the trash, and it stops being a chore you forget.
Then look past the feeder. Put up a second one out of sight of the first, move both away from the danger zone in front of the windows, leave them up into the fall and stop spraying. Hummingbirds have long memories for a yard that treats them well, and the bird at your feeder next April will very likely be one you fed this year.
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