Aspects Gem window feeder review

What it is

The Gem is the small, cheap end of the window shelf. If you want the opposite — two ant moats, engineered bee-proof ports and a UV canopy, at five times the capacity and roughly double the price — see the Roamwild window feeder.

Aspects lists the Gem as item 437: a 4 oz hummingbird window feeder with two feeding ports, its HighView perch, an engraved nectar scale, and support for optional Nectar-Guard tips. Duncraft’s listing adds that the ports use raised flowers to divert rain and prevent diluted nectar, that the body is red plastic with a clear basin, that a strong suction cup holds the feeder to the window, and that the feeder lifts off its mounting bracket for cleaning. Duncraft gives the size as 5-1/4 by 3-1/4 by 1-3/4 inches; the Amazon listing gives a length of 5.13 and a height of 1.88 inches — close enough to agree, and we quote both rather than choose.

It is made in the USA, and Aspects states that it manufactures all items in its Rhode Island facility and stands behind every item with a lifetime guarantee. We have not handled this feeder — every figure here is quoted from the sources at the foot of the page, and this is what we do instead of testing.

Why this page exists now

Our window-feeder recommendation has long been the Gem’s bigger sibling, the Aspects Jewel Box. When we checked availability recently we could not find a currently purchasable single-unit listing for it — only multi-packs, which are a different purchase at a different price.

The Gem is the Aspects window feeder you can actually buy today. It is not a like-for-like replacement: it holds half as much and has one fewer port. But it shares the maker, the American manufacture, the lifetime guarantee and — most importantly — a genuinely good answer to the mounting problem. That is worth a review of its own rather than a footnote.

The mount is the whole argument

Almost every complaint about window feeders is really a complaint about suction cups, and the failure is predictable. Heat cycling weakens the seal, and the other thing that breaks it is handling: you pull the feeder off the glass every few days to wash it, press it back on, and each time the cup seats a little less well than before. Eventually a filled feeder lets go.

The Gem separates those two jobs. The suction cup holds a bracket. The feeder sits in the bracket and lifts off it. So on wash day you take the feeder to the sink and the cup never moves — it stays pressed to clean glass through the whole season, which is exactly the condition in which suction cups actually hold.

We are otherwise wary of single-suction-cup window feeders, and say so plainly on our window feeder roundup: one small cup carrying a full reservoir is a failure waiting for a hot afternoon. Two things make the Gem a reasonable exception rather than a contradiction. The load is the smallest of any feeder we cover — 4 oz of nectar in a small plastic body. And the design removes the handling that normally defeats the cup. It is still one cup, and that is still its main weakness; it is just the best-mitigated version of that weakness we have seen.

Getting the cup to hold

• Clean the glass with rubbing alcohol first, then let it dry. Residue breaks a seal faster than age does.
• Mount on the outside of the pane, on glass that is smooth rather than textured or coated.
• Press hard and check it after the first hot week. Heat cycling is what loosens a seated cup. Push it back down, and again in the fall.
• Think about what is below the window. The consequence of a fall is small with a 4 oz plastic feeder, but it is not zero over a patio or a neighbor’s balcony — see feeders for a balcony or deck railing.
• Mount it on the glass, not a few feet away from it. A bird leaving a feeder stuck to the pane has no room to build up speed; the risky distance is the middle one, where a startled bird accelerates into a reflection.

Four ounces: better than it sounds, worse than it sounds

Better: nectar spoils on the weather’s schedule, not on how much you poured, and in heat that schedule is daily. A 4 oz feeder is emptied or changed long before it has time to go off, which makes the Gem one of the few feeders we can recommend without telling you to fill it part way. On a sunny pane, where glass warms and spoilage speeds up, that is a real advantage — see feeders for hot weather.

The clear basin and engraved nectar scale also help here in a small way: you can see exactly how much is left and fill to a line rather than guessing.

Worse: two ports is fewer than almost any feeder we cover, and hummingbirds are territorial. A single dominant bird can guard a two-port feeder with no effort at all, so on its own the Gem will usually show you one bird chasing everything else away. That is the reason this is a second feeder. Put your main feeder somewhere else in the yard, out of sight of the window, and the Gem becomes a close-up of the birds that did not win the main feeder — the reasoning is on how many hummingbird feeders you need.

Cleaning

The lift-off bracket is also the best thing about washing it. Take the feeder to the sink, lift the lid, wash a small basin and two ports, and put it back on the bracket. Two ports is about as quick to brush as a feeder gets, and the ports are the part that matters — the inside of a feeding port is the one surface a rinse never reaches and where mold starts, so use a port brush.

A window feeder is also the one where you will notice when it needs doing, because it is at eye level and backlit. That is a feature. Cadence is on how often to clean a hummingbird feeder: every three to five days in moderate weather, daily when it is hot.

Bees, and what is not in the box

Aspects lists the Gem as supporting optional Nectar-Guard tips — flexible collars a hummingbird’s bill opens and a bee cannot — and sells a separate Gem Anti-Insect kit which it describes as an add-on for the Gem only that prevents both flying and crawling insects from contaminating the nectar. Neither comes with the feeder.

On a window that may not matter: insects are often less of a problem on glass than on an open hook, and a feeder hung in a tree gets ant traffic the pane never sees. But if bees do find it, the fix is an extra purchase. The mechanisms are explained on bee guards vs ant moats.

Where it is weak

• One suction cup. Well mitigated by the bracket and the light load, but still the single point of failure.
• Two ports. Trivially guarded by one bird, so it cannot be your only feeder.
• Four ounces. Right for a window, wrong for any real traffic.
• Insect defense is extra. Tips and the Anti-Insect kit are sold separately.
• Plastic. It will cloud over several seasons, and on a window you will see the haze sooner than on a feeder across the yard.
• Stock varies by retailer. When we checked, Amazon had it in stock while at least one specialist retailer showed it backordered.

Who should not buy this

1. Anyone buying their first and only feeder. Buy the HummZinger HighView and add a Gem later.
2. Anyone who wants more birds rather than a closer view. Two ports cannot host more than one bird at a time in practice.
3. Anyone with textured, coated or frequently wet glass. One suction cup needs a clean, smooth surface to hold.
4. Anyone wanting more capacity on the glass. The Perky-Pet window feeder holds twice as much with an extra port.