You don’t need to be a fairy tale princess to attract hummingbirds to your yard or garden. Many people like having these tiny birds around their outdoor spaces, and who could blame them? Hummers are beautiful pollinators that can help give your yard or garden a refreshing woodland atmosphere. Learning how to attract hummingbirds to your yard (and encouraging them to stay) can be tough, but it’s worth it.
The first thing to remember when trying to attract hummingbirds is to have patience. It can take quite some time before these birds accept your yard as a feeding ground, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t see any right away. Once hummingbirds have established your yard as a reliable food source, they’ll come back every year.
Attract hummingbirds with food
Hummingbirds eat almost constantly, so putting out food for them is a great way to help them out and invite them back. Anything brightly colored will attract them, particularly things that are bright red and kept in a visible spot.
Whatever food source you provide, place multiples of them a good distance apart and out of sight from each other, as hummingbirds are territorial and will chase each other off. Make sure to also keep pesticides away, as these can be toxic to hummers.
Hang some feeders
A good way to start attracting hummingbirds is with a standard feeder. These are available at many major retailers or home and garden stores and are quick and easy to set up. Most come in two basic varieties, saucer feeders and inverted ones. Try to find the right hummingbird feeder for your garden and your local hummingbird population, or make your own if you’d like.
Tips to attract hummingbirds to your feeder
- Keep bugs away. Despite feeding on them, hummers will avoid feeders with bugs on them, so use an ant moat or other insect deterrent.
- Fill with one part sugar and four parts water. Only use refined white sugar and not substitutes such as honey, corn syrup, raw or powdered sugar, or artificial sweeteners.
- Don’t add any red dye or other additives, as these can be harmful.
- Change the nectar and clean the feeder every few days, and right away when the feeder is dirty or the birds empty it.
- Make sure it’s a good distance from your house, and especially any windows so that the birds don’t collide with them.
- Hummingbirds like cover, so make sure there’s a sheltered area nearby, even if it’s just a tree or shrub, but don’t place them directly in trees as this is not where a hummingbird typically feeds.
- Nectar feeders shouldn’t be in direct sunlight or perpetual shade to keep the nectar from getting too hot or cold.
Grow native plants
Another good way to attract hummingbirds to your lawn or garden is with flowering plants, especially brightly colored flowers. These are a hummingbird’s natural food source, and require less maintenance than a nectar feeder. They can also help spruce up your garden and give it some new life. Native plants especially can help support your local ecosystem and attract more small insects to your garden, which are another important food source for hummingbirds.
Some tips to keep in mind when growing native plants:
- Brightly colored flowers are best for attracting hummingbirds, especially anything bright red.
- Tubular flowers attract hummingbirds the most, as they fit their long, slender beaks best and contain the most nectar for them to drink.
- Group flowers by color. Keeping red with red and yellow with yellow, for example, will make it easier for hummingbirds to find your plants.
Favorite plants of hummingbirds
- Bee balm
- Honeysuckle
- Petunias
- Columbine
- Salvia
- Cardinal Flowers
- Foxglove
- Daylilies
- Hollyhock
- Cleomes
- Impatiens
Sprinkle some ash or sand
If you don’t like the idea of maintaining feeders or adding new plants to your lawn or garden, then that’s fine. There are alternatives to help you attract hummingbirds. These plucky little birds will eat a few things that might surprise you. Putting them out may not be as much of a draw as nectar, but it can still be of help to them.
- Ashes, such as those from leftover barbecues or wood firepits. It may seem strange, but ash provides a valuable source of calcium that females need to lay their eggs.
- Sand. This is another source of valuable calcium and provides grit that male and female hummers use to aid digestion.
Leave out some fresh fruit
The juice from fresh fruit provides a valuable source of sugar and attracts insects to feed on. Hummers aren’t able to chew chunks, so making sure they’re ripe and juicy is a must. However, you should not give hummingbirds fruit juice, as it can contain harmful added chemicals.
Offer hummingbirds water
Another good way to attract hummingbirds to your lawn or garden is to give them water. Everything needs water, after all, so leaving out a fresh source can greatly help them and keep them coming back year after year. This water will be mostly for bathing purposes, as hummingbirds get their hydration needs from the nectar they drink, but a little extra drink never hurt, either.
Shallow bird baths
A classic way to give birds water is to install a bird bath. These can be a great addition to any lawn or garden and a good water source for all the critters in your area in addition to hummingbirds. However, when picking out a bird bath for hummingbirds, it’s important to consider their size. Since hummers are so tiny, they need different bird baths from most other birds.
An ideal bird bath for hummingbirds should be brightly-colored with a shallow basin. Standard bird baths are far too deep, so you’ll have to buy a special one or get creative if you want to see these beautiful birds splashing about.
Water fountains
If you want to help out your hummingbird population with some fresh water, you can also put a fountain in your lawn or garden. Moving water sources are much cleaner than standing, and a moving water fixture can be easier to clean than a bird bath.
The best kind of fountain for hummingbirds is something with a rough surface, such as stone or pottery. A weeping fountain with a wide, thin flow of water is ideal, as it’s shallow enough not to be a danger.
If you’re set on a bird bath, you can even find some with fountains built in, which should be shallow enough for the hummingbirds. Ones where the water flows over the basins are perfect for hummingbirds to preen with and get clean.
Drippers
Another good water source for hummingbirds is a dripper. Anything with a flat surface and some water dripping on it will work, such as a hose over a rock, and you can always find them for sale or use an attachment for a fountain and bird bath. If you use drip irrigation for your plants, you might have even been lucky enough to see hummingbirds using it already.
Drippers are more about providing a damp surface for hummingbirds than the water itself. They likely won’t use the drops to bathe unless they’re small enough for them. If you choose to make your own, make sure you make the holes as small as you can to avoid the water running out too soon.
Drippers are a good option for hummingbirds since the sound of the moving water will draw them in. In addition, it will discourage mosquitoes, who lay their eggs in stagnant water.
Provide protective shelter
Unlike most birds, hummingbirds won’t use a standard birdhouse, as they’re not cavity-nesting birds. Instead of trying to make a house for them, you can try and leave out good nesting materials for them. Typical hummingbird nests are tiny and bowl-shaped, located high up in trees and made of fibrous material such as dandelions and feathers.
Tips for giving hummingbirds shelter:
- Put out hummingbird platforms. These are small open platforms with a space for a nest instead of an enclosed house. Hummingbird nests are designed to expand, so make sure it has enough room.
- Hang perches. Even without a nest, hummingbirds need places to sleep and sit down. Hang some perches out in the open and some in hidden spots, so that your hummers can survey the area and hide if they need to.
Good nesting materials for hummingbirds you can provide are:
- Hair
- Pet hair
- Dryer lint
- Yarn
- Thread
- Cotton balls. Make sure to pull them apart to loosen them up
- Any other fluffy, soft, or fibrous material you have around the house
FAQ about attracting hummingbirds
If there’s been a drop-off of hummingbirds coming to your feeders, there’s likely a simple explanation for it. Like many other birds, hummers fly south for the winter and north in the warmer seasons, so depending on where you are on their migration route, you’ll only see them for part of the year unless you’re in certain areas they’re known to inhabit year-round, such as parts of California and Florida.
Other explanations include the availability of other food or nesting sites; an abundance of flowers in the area can draw them elsewhere, as can new or better places to nest. Alternatively, territorial disputes may drive away your hummingbird population, or predators may have become a deterrence. When in doubt, clean any feeders you have and wait to see if they come back.
No, feeding hummingbirds can only help them. They need all the food they can get, as they can starve to death within hours, and will never become dependent on a single food source. As long as your feeders are clean and you’re feeding them the right things, they’ll be fine.
Unfortunately, there are many predators that won’t hesitate to snack on a poor defenseless hummingbird. Stray or free-roaming cats especially can pose a threat to hummingbird populations, so those with many felines in the area should consider ways to keep them away from your flying friends.
Other notable hummingbird predators include, but are not limited to:
• Other, larger birds, such as hawks and owls.
• Rodents like squirrels and chipmunks, who will steal eggs and attack baby hummers.
• Smaller birds like sparrows, who will also go after eggs and babies.
• Frogs
• Snakes
• Lizards
When to call a professional
If you really want to attract hummingbirds but just can’t seem to bring them in, it might be time to contact a pro. Your local landscaping professionals can help you revamp your lawn or garden and make it into a hummingbird haven.
Main Image Credit: Charles J. Sharp | Wikimedia Commons | CC BY-SA 4.0
