In the summer of 2019, I found a dehydrated hummingbird lying on the ground beneath my feeder. She was barely moving — just a faint flutter of her chest. I scooped her up gently, brought her inside, and spent the next hour trying to get drops of sugar water into her beak with an eyedropper.
She survived. I named her Ruby, and she came back to that feeder every day for the rest of the season.
The Question That Changed Everything
After that experience, I started asking a simple question: what was in the nectar I'd been putting in my feeder? When I read the ingredient list on the bottle I'd been using for years, I was horrified. Red Dye #40, preservatives, and a sugar source that wasn't even pure sucrose.
I'd been feeding these birds — birds I cared about — something that could be hurting them.
The Research Phase
I spent the next six months reading every study I could find on hummingbird nutrition. I talked to ornithologists, wildlife rehabilitators, and avian veterinarians. The consensus was overwhelming: the best nectar is the simplest nectar. Organic cane sugar and water, at a 1:4 ratio. Nothing else.
Building The Bird Keeper
The Bird Keeper started as a personal project — pre-measured packets of organic sugar that I could share with friends and neighbors. But the response was so enthusiastic that I realized this could be something bigger. A way to make doing the right thing as easy as doing the wrong thing.
Today, The Bird Keeper exists for one reason: to make it effortless to feed hummingbirds the way nature intended. No dye. No preservatives. No boiling. Just pure, organic nectar.
Every time I see a hummingbird at my feeder, I think of Ruby. She's the reason all of this exists.