Hummingbird Research Data on Feeding--- Sugar-Water Ratio for Feeders -- 4 to 1

Tiny Hummingbirds must obtain nutrients required to live each new day. Even if finding a large supply of food such as a feeder it is unnatural for a hummingbird to be able to eat enough to sustain it for a few future days.

Tiny physical size mandates that survival is a big adventure. These small creatures must consume more than their body weight in food, every day. They manage this by eating often. They also constantly face danger of starvation.

Hummingbird Hunger

Hummingbirds like people tend to eat meals. A Hummingbird dinner means a relatively speedy, large intake of food, followed by not eating as it uses energy from the recent nourishment. Food already consumed moves to an elastic bag in the bird's neck, its crop. There it preforms the same stored then supply functions as a human stomach. Smaller amounts of food empty into the Intestine. There sugar is assimilated into the blood.

Hummingbirds digest all the sugar eaten during sugar-water meals. How frequently they eat and how much depends on amount of energy they use. They are known to feed on a variety of flower nectars with caloric values that may vary from 10 to 82 calories per meal (1/100 fluid ounces).

In the lab it was observed that where sugar water was available a 3 gram bird consumed 5 meals an hour. Hummingbirds ate five meals an hour. Each meal measured less than 1/100 of a fluid ounce.

When food was diluted to half the nutrition this same bird ate the same amount except increased frequency to 14 meals per hour. This left no doubt a Hummingbird might very quickly starve to death as it required eating 4 to 5 times its weight in a day.

Stored energy can keep a hummingbird from starving, but not for long. End of the day energy is usually only enough to keep it from starving to death over night.

Good news is when a hummingbird cannot get food or if it gets cold and thus has physical demand of more energy over night hummingbirds, like hibernating mammals, have the ability to lower body temperature overnight which conserves energy.

Hummingbirds do not however lower body temperature unless facing danger that they actually may starve.

One help for them is if they can get energy-rich foods, then a hummingbird can store more energy from each meal, making survival more likely.

Hummingbirds spend most of their feeding time visiting flowers to eat nectar. Is it a rich food?

Nectar

Greeks termed nectar, "The drink of the gods." Nectar is however simply fluid, water as a rule containing sugar. Anyone who has tasted honeysuckle or petunia blossom can testify to nectar's sweetness.

Analysis of the nectar from 124 plant species showed that it is composed of a combination of sucrose (table sugar), glucose and fructose. None of the nectars contained only glucose or only fructose. When we gave hummingbirds a choice between feeders containing sucrose and those with only glucose or only fructose, they preferred the sucrose.

Nectar fortuitously also contains small amounts of protein, sodium, and potassium salts. Hummingbirds get most of their protein from spending a short time each day eating small insects.

Sugar in Nectar, varies. Average sugar concentration among 65 plant species tested was 32 calories; the highest concentration more than twice that, the lowest was more than three times less than average. Hummingbirds will obviously eat more or less frequently depending on the sugar concentration of nectar in the flowers they visit.

Sugar Solutions

Considering that flower Nectar nutrients differ so widely, one can mix different solutions of sugar and water to achieve different goals and still providing food similar to what birds obtain from plants.

Many Hummingbird feeders are there for the primary goal of attracting these delightful little visitors.

More experienced feeder owners have a goal of offering nutrients that make it on the birds requiring them to feed less often.

A hummingbird will likely remain or return if the feeder contains a relatively rich sugar solution. A 60 calorie solution can be mixed for this purpose with equal volumes of sugar and water (1:1 ratio). This high concentration is important to replenish energy reserves during migration, and to fuel the territorial exploits of males and nesting activities of females.

Once hummingbirds have been attracted with a rich sugar solution for two or three weeks, lower concentration will increase their feeding activity and still provide sufficient energy. To promote high rates of feeding activity, mix one part sugar with four parts water (1:4 ratio). This 10-calorie solution is similar to lower sugar concentrations in nectar produced by some plants.

It will seem like there are many more hummingbirds visiting your feeders because each bird will feed 10 to 12 times an hour in comparison to two or three times an hour with richer food. If you wish to make the change from high to low sugar concentrations more gradual, the "average" 35-calorie concentration can be mixed with one part sugar and two parts water (1:2 ratio).

It is not necessary to always provide the same concentration as the average found In flowers. Like a feeder for seed-eating birds, a hummingbird feeder is efficient because a bird can find and eat a meal very quickly.

 Although a higher caloric food in a feeder is more efficient for the birds, it decreases their feeding activity. It helps if neighbors coordinate changes in sugar-water concentrations because hummingbirds always prefer a higher sugar-water concentration.

By studying the feeding behavior and physiology of hummingbirds in relation to flower nectar sugar concentrations, it has become obvious there is no best or most healthful feeder solution. Regardless of what sugar-water concentration you use, be sure to keep your feeders clean and your nectar fresh for the birds.

Some Information here was garnered from a Hummingbird study done by Dr. Reed Hainsworth and Dr. Larry Wolf are Professors of Biology at Syracuse University in New York. They have been studying hummingbird physiology and ecology for 41 years in the United States and tropical America.