Hummingbirds are amazing. I love how they hover, zoom, come close
enough to let me see them at feeders.
Imagine my joy, then, when our hummingbird feeder, here in the heart of
the Wisconsin Northwoods, was virtually overflowing with hummingbirds.
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Our hummingbirds hum much
faster than most...
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I couldn’t put my finger on why our nectar feeder was so popular—maybe
there’s a lack of flowers here, I reasoned—but it’s been great.
When it came time to refill it, however, I got a clue.
My wife retrieved the refill bottle and read the label. “Oh, so you
just add three parts water for every one part nectar.”
“Right…what?”
“Three parts water for every one part nectar.”
She saw my blank stare.
“You know it’s a concentrate, right?”
So that’s it. I hadn’t diluted the nectar at all—I poured it right into
the feeder. And now my hummingbirds were getting all the sugar they could
handle. And loving it.
It’s a straight, pure sugar buzz, or as the hummingbirds on the street
call it, “the good stuff, man.”
I can just picture hummingbirds telling their little friends (perhaps a
bit frenzied), “You gotta try this feeder. You just gotta try it. It’s a great
feeder. You should try it. It’s great. It’s really great!” and then they zoom
off to apply their sugar rush to whatever it is hummingbirds actually do.
No wonder we have hummingbirds lined up waiting clear back to
Minnesota.
Alas, I’ll start diluting it, for I’m guessing it’s better for the
hummingbirds that way.
I probably will do it gradually—one part water, then two, and, finally,
three—so the birds don’t go into nectar withdrawal or anything.
And, eventually, like a restaurant’s clientele that dwindles when the
food’s quality declines, our hummingbird feeder will no doubt be relegated to
just the handful of regulars and those who come to reminisce about the glory
days of the feeder.
I’ll be one of them.
