Attracting Birds

How to Attract Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are the easiest backyard bird to attract and the easiest to poison through neglect. The recipe takes two minutes; the changing schedule is the part that decides whether your feeder helps or harms.

One part white sugar, four parts water, no dye, changed every day or two in hot weather. That is the entire food side of attracting hummingbirds, and it is where most people go wrong, not on the feeder or the flowers.

The other three decisions that matter are timing (hang it before the birds arrive, not after), count (one feeder mostly gets you one bird), and maintenance (a neglected feeder is worse than no feeder at all).

This page runs through those in the order you need them, gives arrival timing by region, and covers the plants that carry a yard through the weeks when your feeder is empty because you were away.

The recipe, and what not to put in it#

Mix 1 cup of plain white granulated sugar into 4 cups of water and stir until it is fully dissolved. Hot water from the tap dissolves it faster. Boiling is optional: it briefly delays spoilage but the benefit is gone within a day or two of hanging the feeder.

Store the surplus in the refrigerator for up to about a week.

Never add:

• Red dye. Hummingbirds locate feeders by red hardware, not red liquid. The dye does nothing for them and its safety has never been established.
• Honey. It ferments rapidly and can promote a fungal infection of the tongue and bill that is fatal.
• Brown sugar, raw sugar, molasses or turbinado. These contain iron, which hummingbirds process poorly.
• Artificial sweeteners. Sugar is the point. A hummingbird on sweetener starves.

A stronger mix is not a favor either. Roughly 1:4 approximates the sucrose concentration of the flowers hummingbirds evolved on, and thicker syrup is harder for them to process and spoils faster. The hummingbird nectar recipe has the full detail on ratios and water quality.

When to hang it#

Put the feeder up one to two weeks ahead of the usual first arrival for your area. A feeder that is already hanging catches the scouts. A feeder hung after you spot your first hummingbird has probably already lost the birds that passed through.

These are averages and shift a week or more with the season. When to put out hummingbird feeders goes region by region.

At the other end, leave a feeder up for about two weeks after your last sighting. A feeder does not persuade a healthy bird to stay; it feeds the late ones passing through, which is exactly when the calories matter. When to take down hummingbird feeders covers the fall side and the rare western birds that overwinter.

Two feeders beat one large feeder#

A single hummingbird feeder in an open yard is usually claimed by one dominant bird, often an adult male, who spends his day on a nearby twig driving everyone else off. You end up with the same bird all summer and a feeder that barely empties.

The fix is placement, not capacity. Hang two or three small feeders in positions where a bird perched at one cannot see the others: around a corner of the house, on opposite sides of a shrub, front yard and back yard. A guard cannot defend what he cannot watch, and the number of birds you see can double or triple in a week.

Small feeders are better than large ones for a second reason: nectar that sits for a week is a health risk, and a 30-ounce reservoir in a two-bird yard will never be emptied before it spoils. Choose capacity you will actually turn over. Choosing a hummingbird feeder works through the tradeoffs between saucer and inverted designs.

Red, without the dye#

Hummingbirds are drawn to red and orange, so give them red where it is harmless.

• A feeder with red ports, a red base or a red cap. This is all the red the birds need.
• A red ribbon or flagging tape tied near a new feeder for the first week or two. It is a genuinely useful trick for a feeder in a new location.
• Red and orange flowers, which work better than any of the above and cost nothing to run.

Saucer-style feeders with the ports on top tend to be easier to clean and less prone to dripping than inverted bottle designs, and they leak less nectar onto the ground where it attracts ants. Whatever design you choose, it must come fully apart. Hummingbird feeders compares the two styles in detail.

The changing schedule#

This is the part that decides whether your feeder is an asset or a hazard. Sugar water spoils as a function of temperature, and the intervals below reflect widely used guidance rather than a laboratory standard.

At every change, rinse with hot water and scrub the ports with a small brush. Once a week, take the feeder fully apart and clean every surface. Vinegar solution or a very dilute bleach soak both work, followed by a thorough rinse. Cleaning a hummingbird feeder has the method, including how to reach the inside of the ports where mold actually grows.

Hanging feeders in shade slows spoilage more than anything else you can do. Morning sun and afternoon shade is the ideal position.

Plants that do the real work#

Flowers outperform feeders in every way except visibility. They do not spoil, they do not need cleaning, and they support the small insects and spiders that make up a large share of a hummingbird's actual diet.

Aim for tubular flowers in red, orange and pink, and for a bloom sequence that covers the whole season. Reliable groups across much of the country include native honeysuckle, bee balm, cardinal flower, columbine, salvia, penstemon, trumpet creeper, and in the West various currants and paintbrushes. Regional choices matter more than any national list, and native plants for birds breaks it down.

Skip pesticides in beds hummingbirds use. Hummingbirds take enormous numbers of tiny insects, especially when feeding nestlings, and an insect-free garden is a poor hummingbird garden.

A mister or fine dripper is also worth having. Hummingbirds rarely use a standard bird bath but will fly repeatedly through a fine spray or bathe on wet leaves beneath one.

Ants, wasps and the rest#

Two nuisances show up at every hummingbird feeder, and both have clean solutions.

Ants are stopped by an ant moat, a small water-filled cup hung between the hook and the feeder. It works because ants will not cross water. Keep it topped up, and never use oil, grease or insecticide on the hanger, which fouls feathers. Ants in a hummingbird feeder covers the details.

Bees, wasps and hornets are drawn to leaking nectar. Saucer feeders with the liquid held below the port keep insects from reaching it, bee guards help, and moving the feeder a few feet often breaks the pattern. Do not use insect traps or sprays near a feeder. Bees and wasps at hummingbird feeders has the full list.

Which hummingbird you can realistically expect#

Range sets a hard ceiling on what a feeder can do.

East of the Great Plains there is effectively one species: the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), present spring through early fall, absent all winter except for occasional stragglers along the Gulf.

On the Pacific coast, Anna's Hummingbird is resident year round, including in winter, which is why coastal Californians and Pacific Northwesterners should keep a feeder up in January. The Rufous Hummingbird passes through the West on a looping migration, north along the coast in spring and south through the mountains in mid to late summer.

The Southwest, especially southeastern Arizona, gets a dozen or more species. The upper Midwest, northern New England and most of Canada get one, seasonally. If you live where no hummingbird occurs in the current month, an immaculate feeder full of perfect nectar will still sit untouched, and that is not a failure of technique.

Your first season, week by week#

1. Two weeks before local arrival. Hang one small feeder with fresh 1:4 nectar in a spot with morning sun and afternoon shade, visible from open air.
2. Arrival week. Add a red ribbon nearby. Change nectar on the temperature schedule from day one, even if nothing has visited.
3. Weeks 2 to 4. Once a bird is regular, add a second feeder out of sight of the first. Fit ant moats to both.
4. Early summer. Plant or add containers of tubular flowers for continuous bloom. Stop spraying the beds.
5. Midsummer. Expect the busiest weeks as young birds fledge and western migrants move through. Increase to three feeders if the guarding is heavy.
6. Fall. Keep one feeder going for two weeks past your last sighting, then clean it thoroughly and store it dry.