Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 10:22:38 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Maurice Barnhill Subject: Re: SI hummers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Arlene Ripley wrote: > I've been thinking about this too--it's one of the reasons I don't > like viewing poor vagrants, doomed to die. > I know it's all part of nature Exactly. If the hummer were captured to save it from the winter, it should not be released in the spring. If it survives to breed, there is a chance that some or many of its offspring will inherit the tendancy to migrate into unsuitable winter locations, eventually causing more birds to die of cold than were saved by capturing this one. When you intervene to improve on nature, you must do so very carefully, or you risk making things worse. > but I > couldn't help but thinking about alternatives. One which came to mind > was placing the birds in the National Botanic Garden buildings for > the winter. I would think they could survive just fine with feeders > and a large space for them to fly about. > > Arlene Ripley > Calvert County, MD (but on the "other" coast at the moment) > > At 12:21 AM 12/9/03, Ruth Culbertson wrote: > >> Is there a place the hummingbirds could be housed to keep them safe >> so they'd survive the winter? I've just been reading a book called >> "Rosie, My Rufous Hummingbird" by Arnette Heidcamp, who kept a stray >> hummingbird in a >> sunroom in her house (in upstate New York) over the winter and >> released it >> in the spring. I'm starting to worry about the little guys/girls in the >> Ripley Garden. I'd like them to survive. > > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > -- Maurice Barnhill mvb@udel.edu [Use ReplyTo, not From] [bellatlantic.net is reserved for spam only] Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================