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One of the wonderful things we discovered when we moved to California was that there is an indigenous population of hummingbirds. We also discovered the interesting hobby of collecting them (not, I hasten to add, trapping or capturing them on anything more than film). These are wonderful beasts. The only bird that can fly backwards and almost completely fearless. We have set up a number of feeders around the house to attract the tiny creatures and these can get virtually swamped during "rush hour" (the time just before dusk. Hummingbirds drink the sugar water mixture voraciously since they have about a half hour "store" of energy in their bodies and once this is expended, they have to feed. At night to solve the obvious problem of not being able to feed, they enter a state of suspended animation rather than true sleep. The whole body winds down to a point where they can just preserve their blood temperature but become almost completely inert. The process of controlling their metabolism is one of the most extraordinary abilities the bird possesses. Some statistics:- We have 15 feeders like the one in the pictures. Each has six "flowers". At "rush hour" we have counted more than two birds using each flower. This puts the feeding population at around 200 birds! During the summer months, we use about 5lbs of sugar per day.