My nephew gave me a hummingbird feeder for Christmas several years ago. It’s not the first I’ve had, but it’s definitely the nicest. It hangs just off the patio and is clearly visible from my spot in the living room.

In the past, I mixed enough sugar water (one part sugar to four parts water) to fill the feeder. More often than not, the contents fermented before the birds had time to consume it. Mixing one cup at a time works out better.

Since I put so little in the feeder, I check at least daily to make sure it hasn’t run dry or fermented. Much to my surprise, the amount of liquid in the feeder actuallly increased. Turns out, bowl-type feeders like mine often take up water in the rain. Who knew?

As with all fastfood joints, stepping up quality control significantly increased traffic. When I’m in the backyard, the birds buzz by me–close enough to touch. They’ve even hovered a few feet in front of me several times, as if thanking me.

Weather permitting, I spend an hour or two sitting on the patio every day. Most of the time, I’m throwing the ball for Tootsie. Hummingbirds pay us no attention, coming and going pretty much all day.

While waiting for Tootsie to return the ball, I pull out my phone and focus the camera on the feeder. Good pics are hard to get, so I usually record a video. Then I figured rapid fire tapping on the shoot button worked.

In my defense, I’m old. I remember trying to capture images of moving objects with an Instamatic camera and then having to wait at least a few days to see the blurry photos. Someone else could probably figure out how to get longer videos from my phone to a post. The obvious options haven’t worked. Technology is amazing!

I have no idea how many different hummingbirds visit my feeder. They’re very territorial and dive-bomb interlopers. I’m guessing there are at least two families. They’re all small, but some are smaller and might be offspring.

I took picutres for several days for this post. Turns out, every picture featured a female. Looks like the male allows some females to feed and attacks others. He’s too fast to photograph and rarely comes to the feeder himself. Ironically, the shortest video in my camera (above) features a male!

The hummers are a fairly constant source of entertainment. They’ll soon be on their way south. When they stop coming around, I’ll leave the feeder out for another month or so.

Next year, I plan to add one or two more feeders. As always, I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for stopping by.