My mother expressed interest in getting a hummingbird feeder and doesn't know how to get started. Any tips? Product suggestions?
Just about any pet store will have hummingbird feeders in a choice of sizes and styles.
This one is considered to be the best by serious hummingbird people, but I don't necessarily recommend it.
Pros: It is beautifully designed, made of very tough polycarbonate plastic, has a built-in ant trap, and is easy to clean.
Cons: It only holds 12 ounces, and it costs two to three times as much as other feeders.
At my house, I would be refilling it every 78 minutes at my current rate of consumption. I am happier with the inexpensive ones I have (150 pesos, about $11.50 USD), and the hummingbirds really don't care about fancy!
If I were buying a feeder from Amazon I would probably go with
this one. It is inexpensive, large capacity, has TEN feeding ports instead of the usual four. The description suggests that the base is two-part (like my feeders) and that is a good thing. You'll need to make an ant trap with this one.
Don't think you have to buy special hummingbird nectar at outrageous prices. Just mix sugar and water 1:4 by volume. The refined sugar dissolves and mixes much easier than the less expensive coarse sugar, it's worth the extra few pennies per kilo.
It takes a while for the hummingbirds to discover and make popular the feeder. For the first several months I would only have to fill my 12-ounce feeder every two days. Now I have a pair of 22 ounce feeders that I am filling three times a day. It is actually starting to become noticeably expensive, but all in all still pretty cheap entertainment.
When you only have two or three hummingbirds at a time visiting the feeder, you will have a "bully bird" problem. One aggressive bird will claim the feeder for himself and devote all his time and energy to chasing the other birds away. This is maddening and frustrating, and there is little you can do about it, short of a BB gun. I was considering that option, but the population attending my feeder became so great that the bully bird(s) just couldn't cope. I think putting up the second feeder also ameliorated the bully bird problem.
So, I would suggest buying some sugar and any feeder with a largish capacity, maybe make your own ant trap like I did, hang it up and sit back and watch the fun.
tanstaafl.
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