How to Attract Hummingbirds

A hummingbird’s favorite food is nectar, and they often visit nectar-rich flowers with tubular shapes, like foxgloves, columbines and daylilies. They’re especially fond of brightly colored red and orange flowers. To attract hummingbirds, try growing annuals, perennials, herbs, dwarf trees or vines in their favorite colors.

Grow plants in your garden or in pots, window boxes and hanging baskets. When you plant to attract hummingbirds, don’t use insecticides or herbicides. These products can harm the small birds.

A few of a hummingbird's favorite flowers are:

• Hibiscus
• Coral bells
• Garden phlox
• Oriental poppies
• Bee balm
• Penstemon
• Petunias
• Impatiens
• Cleomes

Plant flowers that will bloom continuously, or in succession, so there are always fresh, nectar-laden flowers to visit. Hummingbirds also eat tiny, soft-bodied insects they find around plants.

Keep flowers deadheaded to encourage more blooms and leave some snags around your yard. Snags are small living or dead branches that hummingbirds like to perch on.

Hanging a feeder is one of the easiest ways to attract hummingbirds. Premade hummingbird feeders come in many styles and shapes. Choose one with red parts. The feeder should also be easy to clean.

You can make a nectar solution to put in the feeder. Mix 1 part of refined table sugar to 4 parts boiling water. For example, if you use 1 cup of sugar, use 4 cups of boiling water.

Let the solution cool completely before you pour it in the feeder and hang it outside for the birds. If you make extra nectar for refills, store it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it. Don’t substitute honey or any other kind of sweeteners when making the nectar. Red dye may be unsafe for hummingbirds. Avoid adding red dye to the nectar.

Nectar can spoil quickly in warm weather. The solution may last longer if the temperatures are cooler and the nectar is in some shade. Keep an eye on the feeder. If the nectar looks cloudy, change it. Otherwise, change the nectar once or twice a week.

Scrub and clean the feeder every time you refill it, so mold, bacteria and fungi don’t grow in it. Special cleaning tools are available to reach inside hummingbird feeders. Use a vinegar-and-water solution instead of dishwashing soap to clean the feeders. Even trace amounts of soap could harm a hummingbird. Making the cleaning solution from one part vinegar and four parts water. Be sure you rinse the feeder and all the parts thoroughly before you refill it.

Hummingbirds will come back repeatedly to a source of nectar. Don’t let your feeders run dry or the birds may go somewhere else. If you attract so many hummingbirds that they fight over your feeder, add more feeders out of sight of the first one.

Don’t be discouraged if hummingbirds don’t visit your feeder right away. It may take a little while for them to find it. Sometimes they’re nesting or they’ve already found plenty of natural nectar. Be patient and the hummingbirds should eventually show up.

• Put your feeder near native plants or flowering plants with red and orange blooms. You can even hang brightly colored cut flowers or plastic flowers around your feeder to help them find it.
• Be sure your feeder is in an area without any cats around.
• Keep the feeder close to some tree or shrubs with small twigs or branches for hummingbirds to perch on.
• Hang multiple feeders to help hummingbirds see their red colors.
• Make sure your feeder isn’t hidden by dense foliage or under a roof where the birds can’t see it. The birds hover as they feed, so they need a little room to maneuver anyway.
• Hang the feeder in some shade, if possible, so the sugar water won’t quickly ferment and go bad.
• Put your feeders where you can see from inside your home, so you can enjoy your winged visitors and know when it’s time to refill the sugar water.

Choose an easy-to-clean feeder with red parts to attract hummingbirds. Look for a feeder with an ant moat that you can put plain water in, so ants can’t get into the sugar water. Some dish-shaped feeders have built-in ant moats. Detachable ant moats that
hook onto the top of the feeder are also available.

If bees are a problem around the sugar water, choose a feeder with small feeding ports designed especially for hummingbird beaks.

Have your feeders up before you see any hummingbirds, or about the time the first flowers bloom or tree buds swell. The tiny birds will usually arrive and depart, if they migrate, at about the same time every year. It’s better to put feeders out earlier than later. If there's a cold snap, be sure the nectar doesn't freeze.

Some hummingbirds migrate and some do not. In general, put your feeders out by the middle of March, when the earliest hummingbirds are on the move.

Wait a week or two later to put out feeders in the northern U.S. states. If you live along the Gulf Coast, put them out a week or so earlier. Climate affects hummingbird migration. If the birds don’t migrate in your area, or they overwinter there, keep your feeders out year-round.

You don’t need a garden to attract hummingbirds. They will also visit containers of herbs, vines, flowers and other plants as well as feeders on your balcony. Just make sure your flowers are colorful and that you have enough for the birds to easily spot. If possible, put a small bird bath on your balcony. Add a mister or sprinkler to the fountain. Hummingbirds are attracted to moving water.

Give them places to perch, too. Hummingbirds can use a straightened wire coat hanger attached to a balcony railing or chair, a clothesline or twigs and small branches inserted into pots.

If you're short on colorful flowers, tie red ribbons or tape around your balcony railings.

If your balcony doesn’t get enough sun for sun-loving plants, try shade-loving plants like native species, coral bells, nasturtiums, nicotiana or fuchsias.

Unlike many other birds, hummingbirds don't need special, ready-made homes. They don't nest in cavities, either. Since they build their nests out of spider webs, moss, lichen and other natural materials, you don't have to provide a premade hummingbird home. You can help, however, by allowing some spider webs to remain in your yard or garden.