Sugar Water, Swarms, and a Snake
If you walk up to our house in the middle of summer, you don’t just see the hummingbirds—you hear them. The air literally buzzes with the sound of dozens of tiny wings beating eighty times a second. For years, Mom has been running what can only be described as a five-star, all-you-can-eat dining establishment for local hummingbirds, and business is always booming.
Her feeders used to hang out back, tucked away under the shade of a big dogwood tree by the unattached carport. It was a nice spot for the birds, but the problem was that you always had to go out of your way to see them. Because they were out of sight, they sometimes got a little neglected. Life would get busy, and the feeders wouldn’t get refilled quite as often as they should have. We realized we were missing out on the best part of feeding them: getting to watch them.
So, we decided to bring the show to us and moved the whole operation to the front porch. We mounted two heavy-duty brackets on the porch posts, ran a sturdy metal rod between them, and added hooks to hang the feeders in a neat row. It completely changed the game. Now, you don’t have to wander out into the yard to check on them. You can just sit back in a chair on the porch with a glass of sweet tea and watch this awesome, chaotic swarm of little Ruby-throated hummingbirds flying in and out, mere feet away.
Keeping It Simple: The Gear and the Bully
If you know Mom, you know she doesn’t go for the fancy or elaborate setups. You won’t find any delicate hand-blown glass contraptions that cost a fortune from a boutique bird store in her yard. She also sure as heck doesn’t buy that expensive, pre-mixed nectar from the grocery store.
Instead, she relies on the same classic, dependable Perky Pet feeders she’s used for years. They are all the exact same size, the exact same capacity, and the birds absolutely love them. There’s a comforting consistency to it.
Every hummingbird season follows a familiar, almost comedic rhythm. At the very beginning of the season, when the weather just starts to turn warm, Mom puts out just one single feeder. Almost immediately, a little “bully” bird shows up. He claims that feeder as his personal property, perching on a nearby branch and stubbornly refusing to let anybody else get a sip. He will dive-bomb and chatter at any bird that dares to come close.
But as the days pass and the migration picks up, more and more hummingbirds arrive. Mom anticipates the rush and starts adding more feeders to the metal rod. Soon, there are three, then five, then seven. Eventually, the sheer volume of hungry birds overwhelms the little bully. He can’t possibly chase everybody off at once, so he finally gives up his tyrannical reign and joins the crowd as they nest and raise their young in the nearby trees.
By the peak of the late summer heat, that single starter feeder has multiplied into an impressive row of eight or ten feeders hanging all the way across the porch.
When fall finally rolls around and the birds begin their long migration south, we are inevitably left with that same stubborn little bully. It’s like he completely misses the memo that he needs to leave! He’ll hang around late into the season, long after the others have gone, until Mom finally takes down that very last feeder just to force his hand. If she didn’t pack up the diner, he would stay until it was way too late—and these fragile little birds definitely don’t need to be around when the first winter frost hits.
The Backyard “Moonshine” Operation
If you want to know exactly how many birds visit Mom’s porch on a given day, it’s honestly hard to say. Someone once told us a birder’s rule of thumb: for every hummingbird you can actually count at the feeders, there are five more resting in the trees that you can’t see. I don’t know if that math is entirely true, but we’ve managed to count at least 20 swarming the porch at one time.
Between their lightning-fast movements, the constant darting back and forth, and the yelling—yes, hummingbirds actually yell and chirp at each other as they fight for a spot—counting them is nearly impossible. It’s just a blur of green and ruby red.
What we do know, with absolute certainty, is how much they eat. During the early season, Mom makes about one quart of nectar a day. However, by the late season, the swarm is putting away up to two gallons of sugar water every single day.
I swear, when we go to the grocery store and load up the shopping cart with giant, 10-pound bags of pure cane sugar week after week, the cashiers must think we’re running an illegal moonshine still out in the woods. Mom’s famous, simple nectar recipe is just four cups of warm water mixed with one cup of white granulated sugar, stirred until completely dissolved. Naturally, she just scales that ratio up as the swarm grows!
Mom whips up her massive batches in an old pressure cooker pot—without the lid, of course. It’s the only pot big enough for the job. Early in the season, she’ll make a batch, put it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh, and top off the feeders as needed. By late summer, the demand is so high that the nectar doesn’t even make it to the fridge. It gets poured directly into empty feeders the second it cools down.
There’s a lot of debate in the birding world about using red food coloring in hummingbird food. Some people use it; some experts swear against it. The truth is, the dye doesn’t matter one bit to the birds. They aren’t looking for red water; they are looking for the little yellow plastic flowers on the outside of the feeders to know where to drink.
The only reason Mom puts a single drop of red food coloring in the water is for us. When you’re managing a dozen feeders, that faint pink tint makes it so much easier to see the nectar levels through the living room window. One glance from the couch, and Mom knows exactly which feeders need to be addressed and which ones are fine.
A Constant Parade, Christmas Ornaments, and Fertilizer
Some days, keeping these birds fed feels like a full-time job. It’s a constant, sticky parade of bringing an empty feeder inside, washing it out, filling it up, carrying it back to the porch, and then immediately heading back to the kitchen to brew more food.
But sitting on that porch makes every single bit of the work worth it. Sometimes, if you sit very still, a hummingbird will fly right up to you, hovering suspended in the air just inches from your face. The wind from their wings feels like a tiny electric fan. They look you right in the eye, tilting their heads. It’s like they don’t quite know what you are, but they are taking a brief, magical moment to say thank you before darting back to the buffet.
They don’t just hover, either. If you spend enough time watching, you’ll see them actually land to take a well-deserved break. They will rest on the tiny plastic feeder perches, alight on the backs of the porch lawn chairs, and settle into the branches of the nearby trees. If you look out into the yard in the early morning light, you can spot them sitting perfectly still among the leaves, looking for all the world like tiny, glittering little Christmas ornaments.
There is, however, one funny little side effect to processing up to two gallons of sugar water a day—something nobody ever seems to mention in those glossy birding magazines. When these little guys take off, they poop. With a swarm this size, it really doesn’t take long for the wooden porch railing directly beneath the feeders to become completely discolored. We eventually had to get clever about it, so we set up long planter boxes right underneath the hanging rod. Now, instead of ruining the porch railing, the hummingbirds are just providing free, steady fertilizer for the flowers!
One Crazy Snake Tail
Of course, maintaining a wild bird haven isn’t always peaceful. There is one legendary snake tail from back when the feeders were still hanging out by the unattached carport.
Mom walked out back one sweltering afternoon to check the nectar levels on four of her feeders. As she approached the dogwood tree, she stopped dead in her tracks. Stretched completely across the top of three of the swinging feeders was a massive, long chicken snake. He had climbed the tree, shimmied down the branches, and was perfectly positioned to catch himself an easy, feathered dinner.
The snake wasn’t afraid of Mom at all. He just laid there across the plastic feeders, flicking his tongue, looking at her, and then looking back at the swooping birds.
Well, Mom wasn’t afraid of the snake, either. Being a country woman, she recognized immediately that it was a non-venomous chicken snake and wouldn’t hurt her. But she also knew that it had to go. Nobody, and nothing, messes with her birds.
She looked around for a tool. The only weapon she had within arm’s reach was a heavy pair of long-handled lopping shears meant for cutting thick tree branches. Without missing a beat, she grabbed those shears, stepped right up to the feeders, and lopped that devil’s head right off in one swift motion.
The birds went back to eating, and Mom went back to making sugar water. Let that be a permanent lesson to all the local wildlife in the yard: Mom doesn’t take well to anything bothering her hummingbirds.