This is our bird feeder page!

The best Hummingbird feeders are the ones with ant traps. You have to clean your Hummingbird feeder every three days, and take out all the extra food, so you probably shouldn't get a large feeder unless you have a lot of Hummingbirds near you. Ants are the most frequent pests at a feeder. If you're in a place with no ants and lots of bees, use a bee guard. Cornell said that you should put several red ribbons about 1 foot long on your feeder to attract Hummingbirds. Male Hummingbirds sometimes are very territorial, so you might want to get lots of little feeders and spread them apart, so they can't guard all of them.

If you want to put up a bird feeder and you have $10.00, here's what you should buy: Three lbs. of bird seed ($5.50), and a stocking feeder ($3.00) (you should only put thistle seed in it). The total is $8.50 so you have $1.50 left. The stocking feeder may not last long so save that $1.50 for a new one. If you're in a place that rains a lot, you should definitely put the feeder under your roof, or your seed will mold and you would need new seed.

If you don't want to buy a bird feeder, you could make one with pine cones by spreading peanut butter on it and then rolling it in bird seed, but you'll probably be feeding the squirrels, not the birds. It's still a nice craft project, though.

The ultimate bird feeder isn't really that expensive, though, and we really think it's worth the money. Here's what Nick has: a tubular bird feeder made of heavy-grade plastic and rust-proof metal (about $15 - $25 for a decent size), standing on a black pole about 6' tall, driven into the ground. There is a seed tray on the bottom of the tube, because cardinals like to eat off a tray. If you keep the feeder far away from trees, then squirrels won't be able to jump onto the feeder from above. Birds like feeders to be about 10' away from thick shrubs, however, so they can grab their food and hide away from hawks in a hurry. Squirrel baffles are the best anti-squirrel weapon. They stop squirrels from getting to the bird seed. Squirrels will go away from our feeders hungry and very embarrassed. Bird experts say that the best squirrel baffle is the funnel kind, as shown in our photo.

We hope that this feeder information is helpful. Most of this information was gained from Craig Mattingly from For The Wild Birds.