Bird Feeder of Dreams ::: 10July2019, 3:30AM (or there abouts)

I love humming birds. Who doesn't, really? Humming birds do reside in this area of Texas; I remember them in my Granny's yard when I was a kid. But, I'd never seen any in Mom's yard. So, I thought I'd see if I could attract one or two to the area in front of the kitchen window where we all sit down to eat. Kind of an "if you build it, they will come" sort of project.

Here's what I did ... and it worked!

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I began with a coat rack. A free-standing coat rack that I thought would look good out in the yard. This one also has an umbrella stand, which I needed to do what I had in mind.

I assembled the coat rack according to directions with one difference. I inserted a 5-gallon pickle bucket I rescued from the fast food place next door inside the umbrella stand. This made it necessary to drill a hole in the center of the bucket bottom. Also drilled some holes around the outside edge for drainage.

Once this was done, I put the coat rack in place and filled the bucket with potting soil. Then I planted trumpet vines in the bucket. Humming birds love trumpet vines and they are perennial in this area so once established, these vines will provide a good source of bright red and orange flowers for the birds.

Then, I made humming bird feeders with aluminum wire, empty soda and water bottles, and the feeder tubes with corks on one end and a red "flower" on the other. I had 10 hooks on the coat rack so I made 5 feeders. (The other hooks contain small tea pots and other pitchers hung for possible nesting locations.)

The "nectar" recipe I used came from the Smithsonian and is 1 part cane sugar to 4 parts water, heated briefly to help the sugar dissolve and to kill off contaminates. 

I considered painting everything. In fact, the original plan was to spray the lower part green and the upper part red. But fatigue got the better of me and I really hope that in a year or two the trumpet vines will cover everything anyway.

I couldn't be sure that the birds would come. The trumpet vine would look great anyway. But the hummers were the real goal. For two weeks, nothing, at least nothing that we noticed.

Then, about six days ago, we were sitting in the kitchen and I looked out the kitchen window and there it was. One lonely tiny beautiful humming bird flitting from feeder to feeder. He was there less than a minute so we could easily have missed him before. I think we all held our breaths waiting to see if he would come back. (A documentary on Curiosity Stream narrated by the awesome Mike Rowe says hummers must feed at least once every 15 minutes due to their high metabolisms.) He did come back and continues to visit the feeder several times a day.

Meanwhile, since the time the photo at right was taken, the trumpet vine has grown nearly 18 inches and I've added another to help fill the pot.

Thus far, I've been unable to capture the little guy on camera. His motion isn't sufficient to trigger my motion sensor camera and I haven't taken the time to camp out on the porch and wait -- not in this 100+ heat! Maybe when the weather cools.

I built it. One came. (Or maybe more. I can't tell one hummer from another, can you?)