Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 16:00:53 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: Return of the Hummingbird MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This afternoon our summer resident Ruby-throated Hummingbird returned and hovered at the spot on the deck railing where "his" feeder should have been. But it had been replaced by a thistle feeder for the winter. He soon went to the other hummingbird feeder on the south side of the house, the one that stays up all year round. He lets the female and the kids use that one, but vigorously defends the deck feeder from about the second week in Aug. until his departure around the 30th. The others stick around for about another week, then migrants stop by for another week or so. After that the coast is clear to get out the thistle feeder. Last year he returned on 4/24. The female should be here in 4-5 days. Paul O'Brien Rockville, Mont. Co., MD pobrien776@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================