How to Attract Hummingbirds to Your Garden in 2020 – Tested Tips by Experts

Attracting the hummingbirds to your garden for native plants or for nectar feeders is not too easy. Sometimes people think that when they hang the feeder or plant, some bird-loving plants in their garden will attract birds automatically.  You can attract the hummingbird by using three kinds of food they like plants, feeder, and insects. Birds use all the above diets to maintain their energy level. You can read more about their food here.

In the summer season, when the flowers or not open, they move towards artificial feeders. Moreover, we know what a bird needs in his whole life; food, shelter, and a place for nesting. If we are able to provide all these necessary facilities to birds, then this will be the most attractive place for the birds.

Similarly, hummingbirds also need all those facilities. Birders, who really love the birds and know how to attract the hummingbirds, have all those facilities in their garden to attract the hummingbirds. These are some necessary facilities for any bird.

But especially for hummingbirds, we can do many more things to attract the maximum number of hummingbirds.

Attracting the Hummingbirds by using artificial nectar feeder:

Quickest and the most common way to attract any hummingbird to your garden is to use an artificial nectar feeder. Actually, the nectar is a primary source; the hummingbirds need throughout the day to maintain their energy level. It’s’s like fuel in their lifestyle. But whenever you want to use an artificial feeder with nectar, you can’t just make ordinary nectar and pour it in any feeder and hang it wherever you want. It’s’s very important to know each and everything about feeders to attract hummingbirds.

Below we will discuss each and everything about feeder to attract the hummingbirds.

 

1. Placement of hummingbird feeder:

Placement of feeder is an essential part of feeding the birds. You can’t just hang the feeder, where the hummingbird doesn’t come at all, or they don’t have the idea of that place; it’s’s just the waste of your time and nectar as well. So keep your concentration on the below points to attract hummingbirds.

• Always try to hang the feeder near the native plants where the birds already visited to get the nectar from flowers.
• Try to hang the feeder in the shelter to provide comfort to birds and prevent the nectar from the fermentation process.
• Hang the feeder where you can easily approach to the feeder for refilling and cleaning.

 

2. Color of feeder:

Most of the flowers in our garden are red in color, so the hummingbirds are more attracted to a red color as compared to others. That’s why we see the most of the feeders are red in color. But many professionals also think that any bright and shiny color is also very attractive to birds. So, we can also use the bright yellow color feeder to attract the hummingbirds.

3. Nectar recipe

Just an excellent red color feeder is not enough to attract the hummingbirds. If one’s they get bad nectar from the feeder, they can’t come back to this feeder again to get nectar. So always try a perfect below recipe, which is very similar to actual natural flower nectar.

Take one part, refined white sugar and four parts of pure water. Mix the sugar in water until it’s’s completely dissolved. Your perfect 1:4 ratio nectar is ready to attract the hummingbirds.

Although pre-made nectar is available in markets, still, its advice to make the nectar at home to prevent the birds from any health hazards.

4. Providing the hummingbirds with perch:

When you are going to feed the birds with feeders, always try to buy a feeder with separate perch along with each port, which provides the comfort to hummingbirds during feeding. Sometimes feeder doesn’t include the perching place for birds’ relaxation. In both cases, we should give separate perch places to birds in our garden. Always try to hang the feeder where the perch places are near the feeder. When the birds come in large numbers towards your feeder, they can’t get the nectar from the feeder at the same time because the feeder has a small number of ports.

But if we provide the separate perches to birds, they can wait on that to get the nectar from the feeder on their turn. So we can accommodate a maximum number of birds by providing the perches.

5. Don’t use any color in your nectar:

Some people think that the birds like the red color, so they try to add the red dye in their nectar to attract the hummingbirds. Don’t do this; it’s very harmful to the bird’s health due to their weak digestive system.  Other than adding the red dye in nectar, you can just buy a perfect red color feeder to attract the hummingbirds.

6. Don’t use Honey or Artificial Sweetness in your nectar:

Some people just try to add honey or some other sweet material in place of refined sugar to make nectar. Refined sugar is very lite as compared to other artificial materials. So artificial sweetness can be very harmful to hummingbird feeders.

7. Nectar Replacement:

Sometimes the people don’t have enough time to check nectar regularly due to which the nectar spoils. Especially in hot weather when your feeder is no placed in a shelter, nectar spoils very quickly. Nobody likes bad and old food. So if you are using the feeder to attract the birds, it’s your responsibility to replace the nectar when it’s’s spoil because it may cause the harmful effects on birds.

When do I need to change my nectar? It totally depends upon the weather and your feeder placement. Ones you check the nectar regularly, after some time, you get the idea when you need to change it. But in some cases, you just need to change your nectar-like when you see your nectar is cloudy or it has changed its color.

8. Refilling of your Feeder:

Don’t let your feeder empty because one’s the birds found the feeder is empty, they don’t want to come there again. The best way to save your time is to make nectar for 3 to 4 days and keep it in your refrigerator. If you have a small capacity feeder with a large number of ports, it’s’s may empty very quickly, and you need to refill it regularly. But if your feeder has a large capacity of nectar, you don’t need to worry a lot.

9. Adding Nectar Defender:

You can increase your nectar life by adding the nectar defender into it. Nectar defender maintains the freshness of your nectar for weeks rather than the days. So, if you don’t have enough time to make the nectar regularly, you can use the nectar defender to increase your nectar life.

10. Feeder Cleaning:

Feeder cleaning is essential when we talk about feeding the birds with nectar. So to minimize this problem, the first thing you can do is to buy a feeder with a wide-open mouth that we can easily clean. Make sure your feeder has separable parts which are easy to clean. Especially the nectar touching parts are so important because sometimes these parts contain mold and rust, which get mixed with nectar and cause health hazards for birds. Whenever you want to refill the feeder, try to clean it thoroughly before refilling.

Moreover, try to clean your feeder with vinegar. You can thoroughly clean your feeder with 1 part of vinegar and four parts of water. Actually, by using vinegar, bacteria, mold, and other dirty things are cleaned.

People also use the bleach to remove the bacteria and mold, But this can be harmful to birds as sometimes bleach is not removed completely from the inner parts of the feeder and mix with nectar, which is very harmful to hummingbirds.

 

11. Bees and Ant Preventing Feeder:

Try to buy a feeder that can prevent your nectar from bees and ants. Sometimes the ants reach the nectar inside and leave the venom in the nectar, which is very dangerous for a bird’s health. Bees are also very harmful to hummingbirds. In the presence of ants and bees, birds can’t feed the nectar with comfort. To prevent your feeder from ants and bees, you can buy a feeder with ant moat and bee preventing the facility.

Moreover, try to clean your feeder from outside. Don’t pure a drop of nectar outside the feeder, which attracts the bees and ants. You can also buy a feeder with small ports so the bees can’t get through these ports.

12. Try to Buy a Durable Feeder:

Always try to buy a durable feeder that doesn’t become unusable after the first use. Minimum a feeder should come through a season. Because hummingbirds take some time to get attracted to any feeder, so if you want to save your and hummingbird time, you need to buy a durable feeder. Moreover, a durable feeder is easy to clean and refill.

13. Try to Hang Maximum Number of Feeders in your Garden:

When you want the maximum number of hummingbirds in your garden, you need to hang a maximum number of feeders in your garden. Yes, the hummingbirds share a feeder to feed, but at a time only one hummingbird feed from a port. Hummingbirds are very aggressive and territorial, only one bird at one perch at a time.

14. Feeder Size:

Always try to buy medium size feeder because, with too large feeder, you are going to waste your nectar because, after some days, you still need to refill the feeder. If you have a too-small feeder, you need to refill it again and again because the hummingbirds need the nectar whole day to maintain their energy level. So a medium size feeder provides a better solution to this problem. You can refill the medium size feeder, one time in a day.

15. Feeder Hanging Timing:

Many hummingbirds travel hundreds of miles every year, especially in the summer season, to reach towards

hummingbird feeders. That’s why lots of energy last during their travel. So to help, the birds try to hang

the hummingbird feeder early in the season when the first group of hummingbird feeders arrived at

your area. When you want to keep the feeder out for next season, always look around your area; if all the groups of birds are moved, you can keep it out for next season.

 

If you follow all the instructions, hummingbirds will surely get attracted to your garden. Happy Feeding!