We have been feeding the hummingbird s that hang around in our backyard for quite some time, now.
I had come home from taking my dog Angel for a walk and was going through the kitchen. When I looked out of our kitchen window, I saw that all three of the hummingbird feeders were pretty much empty.
Usually Mom makes the hummingbird food, but she’s been gone all day, so I did it.
Mom’s recipe (which I used) is as follows:
- Fill four-cup measuring cup with two cups sugar, then four cups water (water will sink below the sugar).
- Put a few drops of desired color food coloring in mixture
- Heat mixture (in measuring cup if glass—if not glass, pour into microwave save container to heat) for five minutes in microwave.
- Remove cup from microwave, stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Let mixture cool until only slightly warm or cool (unless your hummingbird feeder is plastic, then let mixture get cold!), pour into humming bird feeder.
- Replace feeder bottom (make sure it is on tight, so that it doesn’t spill out when the feeder is turned right-side up).
- Hang feeder and watch the birds! 😉
Really–if your hummingbird feeder is plastic–do not pour the food in while it’s hot! My mother did that once after making the hummingbird food, and needless to say, we had an oddly-shaped humming bird feeder after that until it finally cracked / broke / was unusable.
Right now I am waiting for the last batch of food to get sufficiently cool so that I can pour it into the third feeder (which is not only plastic, but is actually an Oriole feeder, but the hummingbirds use it anyway. Mom got the Oriole feeder when we had some Orioles visit our backyard during the summer, and they kept trying to drink out of the hummingbird feeders but seemed to be having trouble).
Do you feed hummingbird s where you are?