Hummingbird feeder

One of our first purchases at our new apartment was a hummingbird feeder to put on our balcony.

Here you can see the piece of aluminum I bent and zip-tied onto the railing to mount the feeder.

I took these photos using a 35mm SLR with an 80mm zoom lens. I'd actually gotten the camera about 10 years ago, and it's been sitting in a closet at my parents' house ever since the digital revolution. I'm pretty excited about taking some more photos with it. I'll try a higher speed film (this was 100 ISO) for future hummingbird shots. I also need to source a cheap photo developer/scanner; these were done at Keeble & Shuchat, who charged $4 for developing plus $10 for the image CD, which came as 1536 x 1024 jpegs.

We fill the feeder with a 1:4 mix of white cane sugar and tap water. We have to change the water pretty frequently (a few days at most) or else it starts to smell like yeast, suggesting fermentation. It doesn't get drunk very quickly, so I only refill it with 3/4 cup at a time - the picture above is the "full" state.

This guy is the reason why the feeder goes so slowly. He spends most of the day hanging out on a nearby branch, ready to dive-bomb any bird who approaches the feeder. All the photos above are probably of this one bird. Sometimes he will leave his post (hopefully he is off eating bugs like he ought to!) and other hummingbirds will come and drink furtively from his precious, but he always returns soon to chase off the trespassers. He's been very easy to anthropomorphize in this regard.