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I was recently given a hummingbird feeder as a gift. I tried setting it up in a shady area away from my other feeder. When I didn't get any, I tried moving it to a more sunny area in the open, hoping that they would see it. That didn't work either. I have yet to get any hummingbirds.

My next door neighbor also has an established hummingbird feeder that gets repeat visits from hummingbirds that know its location. Hers is in the front yard and mine is in the back. I'm a little reluctant to put mine in the front so that I don't look like I'm trying to "steal" birds from her.

I am using the "standard" 4 parts water to 1 part white granulated sugar formula.

Flowers-wise, I have red impatiens in the front. I have planted red poppies, zinnias, and daisies in the back from seed but am still waiting for them to come up and bloom.

Is there anything else I can do here?

EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
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2 Answers2

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I have had good results by placing a few drops of orange extract into the sugar solution. A gardening center manager gave me this tip a few decades ago.

Evil Elf
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Patience. If it goes two weeks without emptying the feeder, take it down, dump, scrub and refill (perhaps not all-the-way full if you don't have enough traffic to use it up in two weeks, yet.)

Also what's around it matters. Probably more than "sun or shade" does. I have one on each side of the house (because we only get rubythroats here and rubythroats are jerks about "defending" feeders they can see, so each can't be seen from the others) and the ones with trees close by for perching in and having cover get a lot more traffic than the more exposed ones - but even the more exposed ones get traffic, eventually. In part because there's a jerk defending each of the other ones... That happens to mean the shady ones get more traffic than the sunny ones, here. So if you are in a rubythroat area, having yours in the back if hers is in the front will, ultimately, work out better in terms of actual feeding traffic rather than one bird trying to keep other birds off two feeders in front.

Ecnerwal
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