Wearable hummingbird feeder: they'll think your eyes are juicy, delicious flowers!

A face mask with which to attract hungry, curious hummingbirds, $80 from heatstick.com. The masks do look silly, and the website is nothing if not homebaked. But if the maker's YouTube videos are to be believed, these contraptions do attract the little buggers and make for amazing eye-to-eye encounters with one of the most magical winged creatures on the planet. I'm kind of dying to try one out.

Using and enjoying the feeder is a two step process. The first is to acquaint the hummingbirds with the feeder. We set an old can of paint on a small shelf on the side of the barn and slipped the feeder onto the can. It wasn't long before the hummingbirds found it, and after a little searching, found the feeding station. Then we let them get familiar with the feeder for a few days. Finally we set a chair next to the shelf, removed the feeder from the can, slipped it on and waited. One never forgets the first time a hummingbird suddenly arrives at the feeder right in front of your eyes.

Video embedded above: "Chris Makes a New Friend" [YouTube]

Product: "Eye to Eye Wearable Hummingbird Feeder." The guy behind it lives in California's Humboldt County, and has invented some other neat earth-gadgety stuff, too, like the Veg-a-Lot growing shelter [heatstick.com].

(Thanks, Dean Putney!)

• [Jonathan]

  Reminds me of the hardhat hummingbird feeder from Birds & Blooms magazine.

• [fnc]

  Well, my eyes are juicy, and would presumably be delicious to certain organisms.

• [Jonathan Badger]

  Great! Let’s train the little dinosaur descendants to suck juices from human eyes!

• [Anne K.]

  Hummingbirds are one of the birds you are probably going to be able to hand feed (well, in their case saucer feed) especially if you happen to live along their fall/spring migration routes. I live in Minnesota so we only really get Ruby Throats and not that many so I’ve never had a chance to try it.

  I’m not sure if I’d want one feeding that close to my face. They are sort of cranky about feeding together sometimes. But seeing their tiny tongues that close would make me die of adorable nature overload.

  After chickadees and American Redstarts, I’d have to say they are some of the boldest birds out there. They just don’t care that you are puttering around in the garden or wandering past them in the tree. Funny how the tiniest birds seem to be the bravest. I’ve hand fed gray jays and downy woodpeckers too but they are far more timid and I’ve only ever had them come to the hand in winter.

  • [Anne K.]

    I forgot nuthatches! They are fairly good hand feeders too. I’ve only ever had red-breasted come to the hand, but where & when I normally hand fed, that would be the only kind around so I’m not sure about white-breasted.

• [Flashman]

  That is awesome!
  Too bad I fucking hate hummingbirds.

• [doplgangr]

  cripes, that makes me cross-eyed just looking at it…

• [acb]

  I once heard somewhere (the details escape me) that someone was killed whilst walking in his garden when a hummingbird flew into his ear and pierced his brain with its beak. If this is possible, attracting hummingbirds to one’s face may not be such a good idea.

  • [Anonymous]

    That is flatly impossible. Their beaks are the length of car keys.

• [muteboy]

  I read a book where the main character was terrified of hummingbirds because his friend had the blue bits pecked out. Was it a Murakami?

• [Teller]

  Sweet, lovely idea. Hummingbirds are darling.

• [thmithy]

  I want one. If you want to feed hummingbirds, there are some things you need to know. http://kern.audubon.org/hummer_feeding.htm

• [mpb]

  In Tucson the hummingbirds would not wait for me to hang their feeder. they would come up to the feeder while I was holding it carefully, walking across the yard to the tree. I had to wait for them to finish feeding before I could walk further. very thrilling.

  In Bandelier National Monument (not too many feeders of any kind nearby) I was regularly stalked by hummers because of my red hair. They didn’t hang around once they realized I wasn’t a portable feeder.

  NB– do not get in the middle of a rufous guarding a feeder (even if they aren’t using it). And female black-chinned don’t share well.

• [Pantograph]

  It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    You don’t so much lose an eye as have the juice sucked out of it.

• [Anonymous]

  @Flashman. Is that a reference to ‘the’ Flashman and as such are you in character?

• [mgfarrelly]

  This post made me think of a gentleman we had here in Chicago dubbed “The Pigeon Man” up near Lincoln Square on the north side of the city. He would sit, motionless, for hours at a time swarmed by pigeons. He was elderly and apparently an epileptic who owned a news stand for years and developed a relationship, and trust, with pigeons.

  A picture of the “Pigeon Man”
  http://celticwander.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/pigeon-man-2.jpg

  Sadly he was killed a couple years back.
  http://chicagoist.com/2007/12/19/any_way_you_cut.php

• [technogeek]

  There’s a bird sanctuary in Jamaica where the owner of the property had trained the local hummingbirds (“doctor birds”) and finches to accept humans. The back porch of the house is recognized “neutral territory” — anyone who sits still there holding a cupped handful of seed (for the finches) or an outstretched finger “perch” below an eyedropper of sugar water (for the hummingbirds) will shortly have a bird alight on their hands to accept the offering.

  It is quite impressive just how little a hummingbird weighs.

  In my experience, hummingbirds tends to be fairly fearless in any case; they can move so much faster than most critters — and they need so much energy to fuel that speed — that a good food source trumps worrying about anything short of an immediate threat.

• [periphera]

  Love this guy; from his site:
  “We believe that our Earth is in serious Environmental/Energy travail and have decided to make the designs, details, and methodology of our energy and environment solutions available to all people on the Earth. We hope our “Global Open Architecture for Environmental Sustainability” (GOAES) will become a model for other globally minded innovators and businesses.”

  He’s got plans for several of the devices on the site and promises to put up more.

• [KatoKatonian]

  Mask shmask. If you have a hummingbird feeder (that’s regularly visited), and you’re patient, you can just stand near the feeder or hold it up in front of you. I had the little guys in my yard floating right above my hand and drinking from the feeder, as well as examining me inquisitively. Or you can find a park that has had success doing hand feedings and visit them during a demonstration.

• [tyrsalvia]

  This sounds like a new Warren Ellis book waiting to happen.

• [Freddie Freelance]

  Was that little guy an Anna’s or a Rufous? He was definitely handsome either way.

  One of the most incredible displays of hummingbirds feeding I’ve ever seen was in Nashville, In, where a homeowner had about 1/2 a dozen feeders in a 20′ stretch of the second floor of his garage, and surrounded by over a dozen hummingbirds. There were so many hummingbirds sharing the feeders that when we first saw them my Wife & I thought a swarm of bees had taken them over.

• [Anonymous]

  I get humming birst going after the red tag on my garage door opener.

  #3 Flashman: Get some counseling. Really. You need it.