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I too enjoy my littlest visitors. {Well my littlest welcome visitors.} Mine are drawn to the all natural flowers in my yard, courtesy Mother Nature.
You say that food dye can damage the hummingbird digestive tract? Good to know. However, I thought that the FDA had approved food dyes for human consumption, and that their approval was generally or often based on the ability of small creatures to survive the experimentation. Since then we've furthered the 'experiment' for years on our own digestive tracts with food dyes. Now you're casting aspersions on them? And I thought that it was all of the fast food, junk food, etc. that was doing us in. Mrs. JJ

blam, for some odd reason, I'm not able to respond directly to you; hence this tag on this post. Although, I want to respond to Mrs. JJ too.

blam, the birds at our feeders will never let another one land at the same one. I have one feeder right outside my home office window just 2 feet away, so I get to watch a lot during the workday. They will fight to the death before letting another one onto the feeder. We have several kinds of feeders but the one I see the most is a 4 or 5 seater. If a 2nd bird comes in, it's always chased off. And one time we found a dead one right under the feeder. Glad yours get along better in the south - like you said; it must be the southern manners, LOL!

Mrs. JJ - the birds here love the flowers too. I'm not sure which they prefer, the flowers or feeders. They're all busy around here. Re: food dye - I've read where we shouldn't add it to the nectar as it is bad for them.

My research on this turned out to be that for hummingbird nectar to make at home that is good for them is to start with 4 parts water, add 1 part sugar and boil for 5 minutes. I've done this for years and birds come to the feeders even without the red dye.

Alas, all our little friends up this way in MN seem to have left already.