There is a hummingbird feeder on the outside of the kitchen window that has constant visitors. We put up another feeder and it wasn't getting much business, but we didn't know if it was the difference in the food or the location. How could we find out?
We decided to test if the birds had a preference for the original food (sugar water) compared to the food in the new feeder (commercial hummingbird nectar). We used an A-B-A design. That means, we observed what was happening at the feeder in three conditions.
A- baseline (sugar water), observation: lots of birds sitting and drinking
B- test condition (commercial food), observation: birds initially came for very quick visits and then stopped coming entirely
A-return to baseline (sugar water), observation: after a few days the birds were back to eating as usual. We did the last step to make sure that it was the food that caused the change in visits to the feeder and the hummingbirds hadn't just left the area or been scared off by a new predator.
We put sugar water in the new feeder and the birds started to come there as well.
Conclusion: The hummingbirds like sugar water better than commercial hummingbird nectar. This is great because it is so easy to make! Just mix one cup sugar and 4 cups of water and pour into your feeder.
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