Hummingbird Feeders

For more than a century, people have been using sugar water to attract hummingbirds to artificial feeders, although for a long time they were all homemade affairs: jars tilted with sugar water inside, hung with wire from a branch, or tubes or bottles with a cork and a tube with a small opening pierced through the cork.

It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that hummingbird feeders first became commercially available. The earliest models were designed much like a poultry pen watering device (indeed, the physics of those chicken waterers still have much in common with today's feeders). Over the years, a variety of designs have been developed, ranging from the ultra-practical to the sublimely ornate.