I have a question about hummingbird feeders.

[Arkansas Granny]

I have two hummingbird feeders that I have placed in my office windows. One is in an east facing window hanging from the lower edge of an awning, the other is in a north facing window hanging from a holder that attaches to the glass with a suction cup. There is no awning on that window.

The hummingbirds are swarming the east facing feeder (6 - 8 birds at a time for a 3 port feeder) and paying very little attention to the north facing feeder even though it is just a few feet away around a corner. The feeders are different designs, but made of the same materials. The popular one has no perch while the other one has a ring around the base so they can perch while they drink. I can't figure why one feeder would be so much busier than the other. Any ideas?

[PoliticAverse]

1. Could you try an experiment and switch the location of the feeders?

That would narrow down if the issue was the location or the specific feeder design.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Now, why didn't I think of that? I'll do that now.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. And...

I had to move a feeder that was apparently too close to "cat cover", hanging over shrubs and next to outside window sill.
When I moved it to the edge of our porch which provided a clear sweep of ground, they mobbed it.
They like to fly all around the feeder so maybe it being suctioned to a window prevents that
or maybe....window reflection???? cause they are territorial as hell over feeders.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. Our office is way out in the boonies on an old military base, so cats aren't a problem.

There are shrubs and bushes near both feeder locations where they like to sit and guard/wait their turn.

They really are territorial little boogers. Sometimes they'll share, but they spend a lot of time trying to run off the competition.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. I had one right by the front door of the porch

hanging in such a way I could stand still and be on eye level with it.
those lil guys would buzz over to look me in the eye, then mob the feeder. At one county there were 12 all circling for their turn.
It was an amazing experience. They do not seem to mind a human that close as long as I was not moving.
Now I am content to have the feeders hanging from the deck eaves and to watch them thru the living room window.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. I refilled the feeders yesterday and when I took them back out the birds saw me coming and started

flying around. I held the feeder at arms length and they started feeding while I was holding it. They appear to be fearless.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. So here's what I've done, so far:

I took the advice of PoliticAverse and switched locations of the feeders. It seemed that they preferred the east window location over the north facing location.

Then I took the advice of dixiegrrrrl and moved the north window feeder to the front of the awning, further away from the wall, which made more room on all sides of the feeder.

Now, both feeders are getting a lot of attention. The feeder that is now in the east facing window has 8 ports and a ring for perching. I've seen as many as 5 birds on the ring with a couple more hovering for position. The smaller 3 port feeder without a perch is still attracting 4-6 birds at a time in it's new location.

I think I'll leave things as is for a while and see how it works out, but the changes do seem to kind of even out the usage.

I had the small feeder up last year in the east facing window and it was quite popular, but this year I've had a lot more birds, which is why I added the other feeder. At least one of the birds is from last year. Before I put the feeder out this spring, I had one of the birds fly up to the empty window , buzz around for a minute and then she hovered and looked in the window before flying off. Since there was nothing else to attract her attention, I knew she had to be a repeat customer. As soon as I put the feeder out, I had birds coming to eat. It's just amazing that they make that long journey every year and still remember a specific place.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Oh yayyy for you!

I am happy everything worked out and you got such prompt feedback from the hummingbirds. !