Whimsical DIY Hummingbird Feeder

This post fulfills my promise to those of you I told I'd put together some instructions for making my whimsical DIY hummingbird feeders.

After having had a hummingbird nest on my back portal during the summer of 2013, I decided to beef up my chances of having a nest again this year by attracting more hummies by having more hummingbird feeders.   Logical??

Here is the nest from last year -- you can see one little baby beak pointing off to the left.

 

Here's one of my completed DIY Hummingbird Feeders:

 

 

Because I had a wonderful handcrafted welded hummingbird feeder from about 20 years ago on which the rubber feeder tip had dried out, I started looking for replacement tubes/tips for feeders and finally found them (where else but) on Amazon.com.

Rather than just buy one tip, I decided to buy a dozen (a better deal!)

I started experimenting with different size/shapes bottles and discovered that the 11 oz. soda/drink bottles work best.  The size has something to do with the creation of the vacuum inside the bottle.

Here's everything you'll need:

Clean empty clear 11 oz.drink bottle, round-nose pliers, feeder tube, dowel or substitute, glass bubbles or marbles, 16-18 gauge craft or galvy wire --  I use about 5-6 yards for each feeder.  Don't use brass -- I discovered it is waaaaaaaaaay too stiff. 

Start making the wire cage on the bottle.  This is all so random that I didn't keep track of lengths of wire, because you can always splice in more or cut off what you don't need.  And each bottle I made, I wrapped in a different manner.  Just make sure your wrapping secures the bottle within the wire cage.

Wrap a length of wire round the neck of the bottle -- you can leave "arms" of wire to later add glass bubbles to the end of the arm.  You can run the wire down to the middle of the bottle and wrap around loop around the middle of the bottle.    I approach this kind of like I were putting ribbon on a package.

Attach a new wire to the wire on the neck of the bottle, send it down the bottle vertically, wrapping the wire around the middle wire, then down and across the bottom of the bottle, and  up the other side, wrapping around the middle wire, then up to the neck wire. 

To make the springy "blossoms" to attach to the wire cage on the feeder, cut 2' of wire

 

 and use your round tip pliers to make a coil at the end

then place the coil against the bubble and start randomly wrapping the wire around the bubble until you know it can't escape from the wire

wrap the remainder of the straight part of the wire around a dowel to make a spring

 

then add the spring to the wire cage on the bottle. 

 

You'll find that the hummies will be attracted to the sun hitting the glass bubbles -- they'll explore the bubbles after you first hang the feeder, but they immediately learn where the feeder tube is and subsequently ignore the bubbles.  I've read that it is an old wives' tale that hummies are attracted to red -- what they are attracted to tends to be the color of the flower in nature that is currently in bloom, or the color of the bloom on which they last fed.

On the crossed wires at the bottom of the bottle add a wire loop as a hanger.

Now you're ready to fill the bottle with nectar and insert the feeder tube.

I had a LOT of trouble at first with my DIY feeders leaking nectar.  I put up a question on Amazon.com about the feeder tubes and got about 30 responses -- all the way from "the feeder tubes suck" to detailed instructions what each person did to make the nectar not drip out.

Here's what I found works for me:

(1)  Don't hang the feeder where it is in a lot of wind -- the wind will disturb the vacuum in the bottle and the nectar will leak out.

(2)  Always start by filling the bottle FULL of nectar.  You need to do this to create a good vacuum inside the bottle.

(3)  Here's the extremely weird part -- and this really works -- it is something I came up with on my own:  After you have the nectar in the bottle, insert the stopper and keeping the bottle "upright," take it with you to wherever you are going to hang the bottle.  Now turn the bottle on its side so it is parallel to the earth.  Suck on the feeder tube as if you were sucking a straw.  Allow your tongue to catch the suction and "stop" the feeding tube.  Don't lose the suction, keeping your tongue on the end of the feeder tube, and gently turn the bottle so it is vertical.  Release your tongue and the suction.    You should have created a perfect vacuum in the bottle, and there should be no bubbles in the feeder tube.  If there is a small bubble in the tube, I flick the feeder tube with my finger and the bubble usually rises to the top of the bottle.  (This is a time where I wish Dr. Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory were my next door neighbor and he could explain all this vacuum stuff to me!)  If you didn't create a good bubble-less suction, just tip the bottle to parallel with the earth and start again.  When you've got good bubble-less suction, hang your feeder!

Alas, my strategy of adding more feeders didn't work and I was not blessed with another nest on my back portal this year, but based on the amount of nectar I am making, I am feeding a lot more hummingbirds this year!

Here's one of the freshly fledged hummie babies from last year: