Field notes from the back porch, July, after the question came up three times in one week.
The short version: hummingbirds don’t use artificial nests - they build their own from spider silk, plant down and lichen on a slim horizontal branch they choose themselves, and you can’t relocate the nest without abandoning it. What you CAN place is the feeder, and the placement matters more than the feeder type. Hang under partial shade, 5-6 feet off the ground, with a sentinel perch nearby, and at least four feet from any structure a hummingbird might collide with. Multiple feeders out of line-of-sight of each other reduce the territorial aggression that limits how many birds you’ll see.
Why "hummingbird nests" aren't a thing you place
The question gets asked often because nest boxes are placed for bluebirds, wood ducks, owls and chickadees - so it feels like the same logic should apply to hummingbirds. It doesn’t.
A hummingbird nest is the size of half a walnut. The female chooses a slim horizontal branch - typically 10-20 feet up, often over open water or a clearing - and builds the cup herself out of plant fibres, spider silk, and lichen for camouflage. The spider silk is structural: as the chicks grow, the elasticity lets the cup stretch. Nothing artificial we can offer reproduces this.
There are companies that sell “hummingbird nest cups” - small wicker baskets meant to be wired to a branch. Hummingbirds essentially never use them. The female prefers a site she’s selected, with the camouflage she’s woven, on a branch she’s tested for sway.
What you CAN do for the nesting question is:
- Plant a slim-branched tree (paperbark maple, dogwood, small oaks) that gives them options.
- Don’t disturb a nest you find. Walk past, leave it alone, don’t photograph closer than 3 metres.
- Leave spider webs in the garden. They’re the structural material the bird needs.
- Don’t deadhead the lichen off your tree bark. It’s the camouflage.
The feeder is what you actually place
Even though you can’t place the nest, you can absolutely affect where hummingbirds spend their day - by where you hang the feeder. Five rules:
1. Partial shade, not full sun
Direct sun heats sugar water rapidly and accelerates fermentation. By mid-afternoon, a feeder in full sun can be hot enough to be unpalatable and culturing yeast within hours.
Best spots: under an eave, on the shaded side of a porch, under the dappled canopy of a small tree.
Worst spots: south-facing wall in summer; the middle of a sunny lawn.
2. Height: 5-6 feet from the ground
Same logic as a seed feeder - high enough that cats can’t ambush, low enough to refill without a ladder. Hummingbirds don’t care about height (they nest higher) but you’ll be cleaning this every 3-5 days; reach matters.
3. Near a sentinel perch
Hummingbirds defend feeders from a vantage perch - usually a bare twig within 2-3 metres of the feeder. If there’s no perch nearby, the dominant bird won’t fully claim the territory; if there is one, they’ll perch and patrol from it.
A small dead branch left in place near the feeder is the best perch you can offer. Don’t trim it. The bird wants exactly this.
4. Four feet of clear air around the feeder
Hummingbirds approach and leave fast. Walls, glass, ironwork all become collision risks if the feeder is too close. Leave a 4-foot radius of clear air.
Window proximity uses the same logic as we covered in best place for a bird feeder - under 3 ft from the glass or over 10 ft from it. Suction-cup window feeders work; mid-range placement kills birds.
5. Multiple feeders, out of line-of-sight
This is the single biggest lever you can pull. The reason your one feeder appears to have only one hummingbird is that a dominant male is defending it from a perch where he can see every approach. Block his sightlines with multiple feeders placed around the garden - one on the front porch, one in the side garden behind a shed wall, one on the back patio, one under the eaves on the opposite side of the house.
Within a week of going from one feeder to four, you typically see hummingbird counts triple. The full breakdown is in are hummingbirds territorial.
The kit that lets you actually watch them
Hummingbirds fly at 30 mph and disappear behind hedges before you can track them with the naked eye. A close-focus pair of binoculars is essential.
Nikon Prostaff P3 8x42 Binoculars
The pair we leave on the kitchen windowsill from May to October.
An 8x42 with a close-focus distance of about 8 ft - exactly what you need to ID a hummingbird species at a porch feeder. Wide field of view, light enough to lift one-handed, fully waterproof. Works for everything else too - ducks on the pond, distant raptors, garden tits.
- 8x magnification - enough detail for ID, wide enough to track flight
- Close focus around 8 ft - works at a feeder
- Fully waterproof and fog-proof
- Rubber-armoured body, scratch-resistant lenses
Nikon · Prostaff P3
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The nectar recipe
One part white sugar to four parts water. Dissolve in warm water, cool before pouring. No food colouring (the red of the feeder body is enough). No honey (ferments fast and harbours fungus). No artificial sweetener.
Change every 3 days in hot weather, every 5 in cool. Scrub the feeder weekly in hot soapy water, rinse, full air-dry. Fermented nectar damages a hummingbird’s liver.
The plants that help
A feeder pulls hummingbirds in but plants keep them in the area. The reliables:
- Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans)
- Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
- Bee balm (Monarda)
- Sage (Salvia) - many species
- Penstemon
- Coral honeysuckle
- Columbine
A bed of any three of these alongside the feeder gives the birds natural food on rotation and reduces the boom-bust pattern that pure feeder dependence creates.
For the broader backyard bird-attraction setup that complements a hummingbird garden, see how to attract common backyard birds.
The bottom line
You can’t place a hummingbird nest - the female chooses. What you can place is the feeder, and four feeders in shade with sightlines blocked transforms a one-bird garden into a small flock. Refresh the nectar every 3-5 days, scrub the feeders weekly, plant a trumpet vine. The rest is watching.
