Fatal Problem with Hummingbird Feeder (1 Viewer)

This is my first post. I live in central Vermont.
For years I owned a gallery and sold hummer feeders made by glass blowers with stoppers made with clear plastic tubes and ball bearings. They had to be filled to the top to create suction. I used them with few problems other than occasional dripping. They were quite lovely.
This week I came home to find one hummer bashing against another. I quickly discovered that one was stuck to the feeder. Its beak was open with one half on the outside and the other half on the inside, and its tongue was lodged against the ball bearing. (I observed that hummers have very long nearly translucent tongues that are otherwise invisible.) I tried but failed to save its life. When I got it released it was lifeless. I will not be using that style feeder again.

Hi kdeets,

A warm welcome to BirdForum from all the Moderators and Admin. Glad to have you on board :t:

That's very sad. I have moved your thread to our hummingbird forum where it will get more "hits".

That's awful. I'm sure that was really difficult.

Hi kdeets and a warm welcome to you from Myrtle Beach.

This is the second hummer feeder problem that's arose this week. See: http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=285745

What makes it worse is that we only try to do our best for the hummers and when something like this happens, it's a bit shattering.

Oh, that must have been difficult. Sorry it was this tragedy that led you to the forum.

Brutal. My heart goes out to you.