Feeding Hummingbirds

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How many of you have hummingbird feeders? What do you use in them? Have you ever considered the health of the bird? I can say that in the past this never crossed my mind. I had never heard of GMOs. I assumed that if food coloring was on my grocery shelf it was safe.



Ruby Throated Hummingbird, Feeding from Flower, USA

Photographic Print
Nussbaumer, Rolf
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Recently I learned that beet sugar contains GMOs and that GMO’s have been linked with infertility. This horrified me as I wondered how this would affect my hummingbirds. Could the use of GMO sugar cause the extinction of hummingbirds? It was something to think about. I now use only cane sugar in my homemade nectar.

A few years ago I had heard not to use food coloring in homemade nectar but never heard why. I just stopped using it as I didn’t want to take any chances. Now I know why. Food dyes have never been studied in regards to their effects on wild life. The three most widely used dyes are Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 and they are all contaminated with cancer-causing substances. Red 3 has been identified as a carcinogen by the FDA but is still commercially used. They don’t sound healthy for human consumption. What could they do to a bird as tiny as a hummingbird? Actually there really isn’t any reason to color the water as you can buy bright-colored glass feeders. I recently purchased two feeders on a mark down table. They are blown glass. One is a bright yellow and the other bright red. Beautiful! And my hummingbirds love them.



Ruby-Throated Hummingbird at Feeder, Illinois

Photographic Print
Imagery, Daybreak
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