FEED ME!

UPDATE: Two of the feeders will take a scant four cups of sugar water, aka syrup, between them. The third feed takes the entire four cups of syrup. The smaller of the two feeders are hanging on a double shepherds hook while the larger of the feeders is hanging on a single shepherds hook. The feeders on the double shepherds hook are only about 2.5 feet apart and the single feeder is about six feet away. I'll sit at a better vantage point and attempt better photos. Oh yes, it's a chore but I'll do it for YOU! -LOL-

I've counted twelve...12!...humming birds at the feeders; those little suckers are eating me out of house and home. smile At a bare minimum, a very bare minimum, they drink four cups of sugar water a day but I usually fill all three feeders in the morning with eight cups of syrup! 

Every evening I make the sugar water, each morning I fill the feeders. Generally, all three are empty, or close to empty, by day's end. 
Using an electric water kettle, twice, I'll boil about two cups plus a couple of tablespoons of water and add it to one cup sugar. That sits overnight, cooling, and, in the morning, I it's added to another scant two cups of water and fill the feeders. The solution is a trifle, but not a lot, heavy and the birds love it. However, if I'm slow, or not as fast as they think I should be, they start dive bombing me. It's crazy, I'm ducking, screaming like a girl, trying to dodge them as they swoop around me, urging me on faster, faster, faster...fill it faster!

"Experts" say to begin feeding humming birds after Memorial Day and take up the feeders Labor Day. "Experts" are wrong; at least, around here, they are wrong. Humming birds show up the first of April and they are hungry. I'm not waiting another two months to begin feeding them, so, I feed from April first to about end of September when the humming birds are gone.
The feeders are out in the open, away from the house or trees or bushes. It may look like those bushes are closer to the feeders but they aren't. I think the birds enjoy being in the open; it gives them room to maneuver as flit, fly, swirl, swoop and carry on.
Aunt Esther had three dozen, sometimes more, show up at her feeders but she used liter soda bottles and would fill them up about every other day. Next year, maybe I'll try the liter bottles and see how many more I can attract. Most of my early evenings and all of my rest breaks are spent on the back porch watching them fight each other, chase each other chattering like monkeys all the while. Such FUN!

Blessings ~ humming birds ~ sugar water ~ pretty days ~ rain ~