Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 07:43:20 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: SI hummer survival In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi -- The hummer person in Takoma is Sam Pancake. I think he is in phone book. Not only did he add some extra materials to his sugar-water, but he had to heat the feeder with an electric tape to prevent its freezing, and he also provided an infrared lamp. I sometimes stopped by his house in late afternoons en route home from the University of MD, and I saw the Rufous go to roost with House Sparrows in the ivy attached to Sam's chimney. I can imagine the body heat of the sparrows plus the heat from the chimney helped the bird survive the rather nasty icy winter. I was also there one day in early April. Sam told me that the hummer had been very restless the last few days and had been flying to the tops of trees and sitting. As we spoke, the bird flew to the tip of one of the large street trees in front of Sam's house, sat for a moment, and flew off -- west. It didn't come back. However, two years later a female Rufous showed up in Sam's yard for a few weeks and may have been the same one. (That one had been banded, but I do not know if Sam ever was able to see if the returning bird was also banded). Gail Mackiernan Silver Spring, MD on 12/09/2003 7:22 AM, Leo Weigant at weigant@USNA.EDU wrote: > Bob, His name was Sam Dash, if I remember aright. Can't help with > the address. > > Leo Weigant > >>>> Gyrfal@AOL.COM 12/9/03 6:15:44 AM >>> > > Apparently Rufous hummers can survive pretty cold weather, as the one > in Takoma Park perhaps ten years ago did with temps down to ten, as I > recall. The > key is proper food and shelter from the wind. > > The owner of the home where that bird lived out the winter purportedly > contacted the National Zoo and learned to put proteins (what and how I > do not know) into the sugar water for a proper winter diet. > > Someone probably has records of the name and/or address of that > benefactor and perhaps someone else could contact him to get the > details and pass them > along to the Smithsonian folks who put up the feeder recently. > > The knowledge is available; the key is to get it in the right hands > soon. > > Bob Mumford > Darnestown > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ====================================================================== > = > > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================