Perky-Pet Lantern Hummingbird Feeder 201 – 18 oz

If you hold on to the top half of the basin, you can use your thumb in the hole to push out the bottom half to clean it. Until I get more hummers, I’m making sugar water a small amount at a time. Sugar has no nutrients, so I’m planting some of their favorites. Some for the yard, and some for pots under the feeder where I can see them. I also got a pump on Amazon and made a bubbler fountain in a shallow bird bath under the window. Youtube has a lot of ideas.

perfect

I hung this up and waited, and waited, and waited……and finally! I saw my first hummingbird! At first glance I thought what is that thing? It looked like a giant brown moth and then it clicked…OMG, it’s a hummingbird! I live in the center of Vancouver and while it is rare to see a hummingbird, they do exist so I thought why not? At just over six dollars I thought if it works, great and if not….well it’s not a big loss. It took about six weeks but now they are coming. At least once everyday I see a number of the bigger brown ones and the odd time I’ll see one of those colorful Anna’s. It’s always such a thrill to see them and I’m so glad I took the chance in purchasing this feeder. It was the cheapest one but Hey!…..it works great! I would recommend this to anyone who wants to attract hummingbirds! You don’t need to spend a lot of money!

Does it’s job. I have about 3 or so hummingbirds that have claimed it. I only need to fill it about 1/3 of the way and refill once a week. The little wire hanger included is surprisingly strong. No issues with leaking at all, and easy to clean – the bottom pops off to clean the inside as well. The only trick is filling and flipping over without spilling the nectar. Flipping over fast helps.

UPDATE: Bees have discovered it. Didn’t realize this would be a problem and the openings are big enough for them to climb in.

UPDATE 2: fixed the bee problem with a simple hack. Just wrapped the flower attachments in green mesh plastic, reused from a bag of brussel sprouts. Hummingbirds didn’t even notice the difference and now bees can’t get into the holes. Still one star deducted bc they should have put bee guards on this from the start.

As Hummingbird reloves around my garden , I thought to buy this product within few days it’s start drinking water from it. In the hot summer, other birds drinks water from Tera pot, I placed the humming always confuse and revolve around. The product is good and valuable. I say you must buy for your house too.

The item has a defect which makes it unusble until fixed – which I was able to do. BUT I shouldn’t have to fix a brand new item, and there’s no guarantee my fix will hold for the long term. It was just easier to fix than do the whole return/refund process. I’ll discuss the defect and my fix below.

HERE… I’ll review the feeder as if it did NOT have a defect: Hard, clear ABS plastic reservior threads into red ABS plastic base. Reservior has a built in hanging connection, which is a bit too shallow (won’t fit my snap connectors easily), but workable. The plastic base is two parts, which just snap together; four “flower” feeder ports snap-in to the upper part of the base, and fit securely.
The reservoir screws into the red base – and this is a real weakness: the base has a SINGLE thread to engage the reservoir’s threads – it is REALLY easy to overtighten and hear it go “snap” as it loses the threading. This will strip out really easily, be careful.
I put teflon tape on the reservoir threads to make it more secure and seal better; I also added an o-ring around the the reservoir’s neck – both improve the seal.
Once all together (and with fix described below), I filled it with nectar and hung it up without incident. I’ve noticed no leakage since hanging it.
SO… one star off for the weak threads – other than that, for a plastic-only feeded, this is a good item at a good price point.

AS LONG AS THE MFGR fixes the defect.
SO… what actually happened is I filled it with nectar and hung it up… it dripped a bit for a few seconds, then stopped. Then after about 15s, it began streaming nectar out of all four feeder ports – not dripping, streaming. It emptied the reservoir in about 60s. I went through all the basics, added teflon tape and an o-ring… filled it up again… same behavior, it drained out in 60s. Pretty frustrating.
So I cleaned up the nectar, filled the reservoir with water & just watched… noticed a little drip from the SQUARE end (the TOP) of the reservoir. Turned it over and drew a vacuum in the reservoir… AH! Steady bubbling – a stream of bubbles from one corner of the square end.
I cleaned and dried the reservoir and looked carefully. One of the square end’s points has a very small hole, about 1mm x 1.5mm… with that hole, it would NEVER seal. The hole is right on the point and appears to be a plastic injection defect. Rather than returning the feeder, I scuffed the point with some sandpaper & made sure it was dry inside & out, then mixed up some waterproof epoxy & applied it to the hole. I got enough inside & out to seal the hole and let it set overnight. Filled it with water, drew a vacuum – no bubbling, no stream of bubbles.

SO: PerkyPet… fix the problems so we don’t have to: The corners of the reservoir need more plastic injection & need to be checked a bit closer. And, the base needs to be redesigned to not strip it’s threads so easily.

Was very pleased with this feeder initially. I like how it hangs away from the window so ants can’t get to it, and as long as it is not windy the hummingbirds can easily access it. However after a couple months mold has started to grow at the top of the plastic bottle part of the feeder and it’s pretty much impossible to reach. Constructive feedback for the designers: pls consider a much smaller aka shorter bottle. Hummingbirds come all day to this feeder and never come close to finishing the nectar so there is no need for the bottle to be so big. I only fill it about 1/4 of the way and they maybe finish half of the nectar within a week, which is about when the nectar goes bad (hummingbirds will get sick if nectar is not changed every 7-10 days). Also the narrow neck makes it challenging to fill the bottle unless you use a funnel or have super steady hands. The designers did thoughtfully include a thin stick to poke the feeder holes and keep them open, and perhaps a long handled brush should be included as well. Even with a brush, due to the shape of the bottle, it will still be hard to clean. A redesigned shorter bottle would be much better. FYI for suction cup hangar I used Woodlink NAHANGER Audubon Window Glass Hang Up which has held it up through rain, strong wind, and snow.