Birds and Beasleys owner Sandy Shull is back with more information about feeding hummingbirds at your house. She tells you what to look for in a feeder, how to fill it, and how to care for it so your backyard birds stay healthy!
Hi! This is Sandy with Birds & Beasleys. I still want to tell you about a few hummingbird things.
“What kind of feeder should I get?” is a good question. There are lots of feeders out there, there are a lot of beautiful feeders out there. Let me tell you what to look for. We think you should pick a feeder with perches. There is an ongoing controversy with perches versus non-perches. We like perches because the birds will come in, they’ll land on the perch and feed, you’ll get to see them. Others believe that they should feed naturally because flowers don’t have perches. We, of course, want you to see them. That is number one.
The other one is we like a reservoir feeder like this one. So that the food is down here and when the wind blows they don’t drop. There are some beautiful feeders out there that have a little dripper, but what we find is that when they get swinging it gets to be a bubble in there, which then means you get ants and bees. For us, this reservoir one is really easy. This is my favorite feeder, it’s called the Fast Feeder. It’s not the most beautiful feeder, but it’s the easiest feeder. It comes apart, it’s very easy to clean, the plastic is good, you fill up the feeder about this full, you swing it on, you walk outside upside down so you don’t drip nectar in your kitchen. As you walk outside, you flip it really quick and hang it in the tree. Keep it up for a couple of days, when the fluid becomes cloudy or you see some mold in there, it is definitely time to change it. This time of year, you don’t need to change it as often, but in the summer, you might be changing it daily if the heat gets to it.
Then, if you’re really really patient, we have a little handheld one, you can put a little feeder nectar in there. Stand out, I say with a nice cold drink, sit in your chair, have a drink, and feed some birds. Thanks for calling Birds & Beasleys! Call us if you have any questions about hummingbirds.