![]() On the other hand, they would cut down on the wind chill. My first aha moment was spotting the old hanging basket from last years petunia’s and I thought this might work to put the feeders into with something to heat them with.īut the feeders went down too far into the basket and the hummingbirds wouldn’t be able to reach them. Whenever I have moved a feeder either up or down in the same spot they can actually take a while to find it so I didn’t want to move them to a new location altogether.Īround the yard, I went looking for items that might just work to protect the feeders from freezing and allow them to stay in the same place. The other problem was is that hummingbirds are very habitual in their actions. What I was looking for was something like the heater in the birdbath that the feeder could sit on without melting them. I had read you could use the type of tape you put around water pipes to keep them from freezing but because of its shape that wasn’t an option.īesides… I didn’t have time to go to the hardware store. Just to give you an idea of what I was looking for, this is what my hummingbird feeders look like. Putting my brain to work I started thinking about what we had around the yard that might work and how I could put that together. ![]() It was all plugged in and working a treat, but nothing came to mind for the feeders. I had a water heater for the birdbath which you can see here and which Amazon carries or your local feed store might have them. I had one night to test something out to make sure it worked. Keep in mind, this was just before we were going to leave and I started to panic. We normally put the hummingbird feeders back outside before it gets light and had hummingbirds appears almost instantly to feed.īut… as I mentioned, we were going to be away for 2 weeks and the weather was supposed to be below freezing the whole time. So, when they come out of the torpor state in the morning, they need something to raise their metabolism and the nectar supplied by the feeders make it a good start to their morning. Torpor is not seasonally dependent, and if conditions are right, birds may become torpid at any time of year. ![]() Some birds will also enter a torpid state if food supplies are scarce. This type of short term hibernation can help animals and birds survive cold temperatures, and this state is most frequently used on winter nights. Metabolic rate can actually decrease up to 95 percent. This effectively conserves energy because fewer calories are needed to maintain life functions, such as respiration and blood circulation. This is a great explanation from The Spruce.Īnimals, including birds, that enter a state of torpor lower their body temperature and slow their heart rate, respiration and metabolic rate dramatically. Hummingbirds can shut their metabolism down during the night in order to conserve energy. Not saying this is their only food source, but it is one of their favourite spots to hang out. In the winter I feel a certain responsibility to maintain a constant supply of liquid in the feeders as the hummers have come to rely on this food source. I feed them all year round and in the summertime when they have their babies I sometimes have to fill up the feeders twice a day and put out an extra one. The Rufous leave in the late summer but Anna’s stay during the winter as well. On the west coast, we have hummingbirds all years round.ĭuring the summer there are normally Rufous hummingbirds and Anna’s hummingbirds. ![]() The feeders are under the eaves of the porch so that protects them from a lot from the elements but they would definitely freeze if left out for two weeks without any way to heat them. While we were home, it’s an easy solution to bring in the feeders at night and put them out during the day. It was actually freezing here which is unusual by itself, but now it was going to go down to -7 C (20 F) and I needed to find a way to keep the hummingbird feeders from freezing. We were heading out on holidays for two weeks and the west coast was heading into it’s worse weather in years.
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