Hummingbird House?

Hummingbird House?
by Dan and Diane True

We provide houses for many bird species, but who ever dreamed of one for hummers?

A hummingbird house seemed so improbable. Even though I had photographed hummers for several years in the United States, Canada, and Mexico and authored a major hummingbird book, it took a trip to the Bahamas to film the Bahama woodstar to open my eyes to the possibility of a hummingbird house.

At a garden party near Nassau in February of 1997, I finished my hummingbird slide show presentation to about 60 members of the Bahamas National Trust, an organization similar to our Audubon Society. Finger snacks, wine, and schmoozing among the guests followed my speech. One guest, a contractor, asked where he might order hummingbird houses to install on his condominiums. My silent reaction was, what a bizarre idea. I couldn’t imagine a hummingbird entering a birdhouse. Incredible as it sounded, I also believe that nothing is impossible—difficult maybe—but not impossible. Humorously I told the contractor that if he experimented, not to put a roof on anything intended to be a hummer house. The whole idea seemed so unlikely I dismissed it. My unconscious mind, however, apparently didn’t let go so easily. Thirty days later, after I was back home in Clovis, New Mexico, I was getting out of bed one March morning when out of nowhere the design for a hummingbird house flashed through my mind.

Too excited to eat breakfast, I went into my shop and fashioned a prototype out of brass welding rod, a washer, and cardboard. The “house” was really a platform. The platform was open on all sides under a cardboard roof. That prototype would never have worked, nor did a dozen or so other subsequent designs cranked out and tested in New Mexico, Florida, Arizona, and California throughout the summer. Although I was disappointed that I hadn’t quickly discovered a design that hummingbirds liked, the project had me hooked.

Back at the drawing board, armed with magnifying glass and calipers, we studied and measured architectural details of 40 or 50 real hummingbird nests. The most common feature of nest location was a fork in a branch, and the branches averaged a certain size in diameter. After a lot of measuring and re-measuring we shaped and tested several more designs. By August, with no hint of success and the breeding season about to end, we reluctantly prepared to shelve the project until spring. That August our last hope for success was to attract a hummer that would nest for the third time in one season. The chance of that was extremely slim, especially on the flat prairie of Clovis. But with nothing to lose, we forged ahead. And lightning struck.

We had finished welding up prototype number 15, which we intended to show to a black-chinned female coming to our feeder. As I studied the hot, still smoking work, I said, “If I were a mom-to-be hummingbird I think I would like an anchor stub here.” So, I put my welding hood back down and added the stub. Diane painted the unit, and with undaunted enthusiasm we installed our latest prototype under an eave where winds would be minimal. Three days later, the female hummer started building her nest on our “Hummingbird House.” Her nest was centered exactly where the stub had been added.

That first successful design was based on a C-shaped spine, with the “C” a perfect half circle. We noticed that the hummingbird stretched her nest from its anchor point and the fork in an attempt to attach it to the spine’s curve, even though it was difficult for her to do so. To make it easier for her to follow that building method, we reformed the spine’s back into the shape of an E. From the first offering of the E spine, the hummingbirds have attached their nests to it as we sensed they would. The added stub, the reshaped spine, and the fork became the heart of our nesting platform. Further tweaking of the design has resulted in a platform superior to those a hummer can find in the wild. The Hummingbird House protects hummers from the weather as well as from predators. As a result, more nestlings survive than in the natural world.

Since that first success we have added other improvements to the concept, improvements born from analyzing the way hundreds of hummers have attached their nests to our device. Our most recent innovation was a tiny tuft of “starter” cotton hot glued on top of its fork. In March of that year we showed 30 models with cotton and 30 without to a population of black-chinned hummingbirds about to begin nesting. The little birds preferred the cotton-tufted models; however, there was a surprise. Without exception each female tugged the cotton from its top location and tucked it down into the fork’s crotch, between the two branches forming the fork. They used that piece of material to form the foundation of their nest. To cater to their preference, we now glue the starter cotton exactly where the birds indicated they want it.

Eave-mounted Hummingbird Houses have allowed observations of nesting hummer habits that would otherwise take years to see in the wild. For example, we were lucky enough for the first time to watch three separate females inspect our Hummingbird House. Each bird “measured” the device against her building ability by pretending she was building—by making “dry runs” with their bills—around, over, under, and across every element of the house. A couple of the birds went through this process more than once through the course of an hour, as if to be absolutely certain that at the selected site building material could be placed precisely where she wanted it, and that once placed her nest would be solidly anchored and secure against wind and gravity. Watching these three build their nests as neighbors was an eye opener into the personality of female hummingbirds. When one hummed away from her site to gather building material, one of the others darted over to steal material. Then, when the borrowing hummer left to get material, the first hummer would dart to her neighbor’s nest to steal material. It’s no wonder that it takes the little birds four or five days to complete a nest.

If you enjoy watching these little birds in action around a feeder, you’ll enjoy watching them build nests and raise chicks in a Hummingbird House at your home.

Dan True is a commercial pilot, flight instructor, and the author of four books. Diane True is a mathematician. They live in Clovis, New Mexico.

Visit Shaw Creek Bird Supply and see our Hummingbird House & Hummingbird Feeders