Hummingbird Feeder - EcoFriendly and AutoFilling

We love hummingbirds!

Over many years we have used different commercial hummingbird feeders. All were successful at attracting hummingbirds, but had some drawbacks. Some of the drawbacks we found were that they tended to leak and for reasons never clear to us ended having ants and bees floating in the liquid hummingbird food.

So we decided to build our own hummingbird feeder. It turns out that the best design is also ecofriendly. It uses household items which usually end up in the trash.

All you need are two (2) 12-fluid ounce plastic bottles (the size of a small bottle of soda), red paint (spray paint is good, but brush on paint works as well), and yellow paint (a paint pen works well, but so does nail polish).

The video in this Instructable was taken with our homemade motion-detecting security system (aka hummingbird naturecam)

The first picture displayed above shows both the first version of our feeder and the current one.

Version One

The first version (on the left) is a plastic scoop from our protein powder container. We painted the outside red with spray paint (no paint on the inside), created three (3) holes, and put yellow paint around the holes with nail polish. We made the holes using a metal-shish-kabob skewer. We heated the tip of skewer and stuck it through the plastic, but a knife or something else should also work.

We put this on the top of our balcony railing and it worked very well. It attracted hummingbirds who often - much to our surprise - drank from the top of the cup. Other birds also drank from the top. Who knew other birds liked hummingbird food?!?! There were no ants, no bees, no leaks.

The liquid hummingbird food we used and still use is the standard one found on the internet: 4 parts water and 1 part cane sugar. We have talked to biologists who say that this mixture is essentially what hummingbirds get from flowers. They recommend against the use of any dye or food coloring. People are sometimes tempted to put red dye in the food. Do not. We find that our "hummingbird traffic" is lower when there are many blossoming flowers which is exactly what we would hope would happen.

We moved on from this design because the liquid food was quickly depleted. We were refilling it many times per day. In addition, we decided that the feeder had to be moved off of our balcony railing because the birds - including the hummingbirds - were noticeably relieving themselves while eating. The fecal material was dropping onto our downstairs neighbors' balcony and patio.

It is still an effective design for any first floor balcony, patio, or backyard - if you do not mind refilling it all the time.

Current Version - Base

Take one 12-fluid ounce plastic bottle (the size of a small bottle of soda) and cut it with a knife about 3 inches from the bottom

Paint the outside of this base red (do not paint the inside). It can be painted with any convenient red paint (e.g., spray paint, brush paint, nail polish).

Put three (3) holes equally spaced around the bottle about 1 inch from the bottom. We made the holes using a metal-shish-kabob skewer. We heated the tip of skewer and stuck it through the bottle, but a knife or something else should also work.

• Note: We determined the height of the holes by taking the autofillling container described in the next step and inverting it into the base without holes. We marked the level to which the container filled the base and put the holes just above this fill line.

Paint a yellow circle (or flower petal shape) around each hole with the hole at the center. Almost any yellow paint should work (e.g., brush paint, paint pen, nail polish).

Take one 12-fluid ounce plastic bottle (the size of a small bottle of soda). You also need the plastic top for the bottle. Create a hole in the top. We made the hole using a Power Drill with a 3/8 inch bit although there are other ways to create the hole (e.g., with a knife).

Fill the bottle with hummingbird food. Invert the bottle into the base and tilt slightly so that the food continually fills the base.

We keep this hummingbird feeder in a planter with a small evergreen tree. We put in on top of the lid from a container of protein powder. The lid stabilizes the feeder and gives the hummingbirds a place to sit. The hummingbirds now relieve themselves into the planter while eating - much tidier and ecofriendly.

We have had as many as three hummingbirds eating from the same feeder at the same time. No ants and no bees in the hummingbird food.

We found the commercial hummingbird feeders hard to keep clean. When we think these feeders are getting a little grimy, we can wash them easily with soap and water or just make new ones.