Date:         Tue, 9 Dec 2003 12:53:27 -0500
Reply-To:     Maryland Birds & Birding <MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
Sender:       Maryland Birds & Birding <MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM>
From:         Steve Huy <Gabboon@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: SI hummers
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<I tend to agree with Steve although part of me wishes the little guys would move a few blocks further east and discover the Botanical Gardens greenhouse! Oh well.>

to be done in by some fumes or a smack into a glass door?

<About providing feeders -- I think hummingbird experts have been saying for a long time that keeping your feeder up does NOT encourage birds to stay around, that day length etc. is the stimulus to migration.>

I know this applies to ruby-throats whcih is where all our experience lies.  But this is a newly realized phenomenon so who knows if it really makes a difference with these other species.

Also this may be the final stop of the migration so stimulus is not an issue.  I doubt these birds were attracted from home by these feeders.

<Keeping a feeder up into autumn may bring a "vagrant" (or exploring?) hummer to your yard but I am not sure that it keeps it there.>

it certainly attracts them so we know they are here.



<The guys at the Smithsonian may very well consider this their "wintering grounds" -- certainly they are behaving in the usual aggressive "it's MY wintering grounds!" manner. If they can make it through, they might well return.>

This may be what's happening.  They made it through so they are back.  Or their parents made it through and somehow the urge to move here was passed on.  And perhaps they are staying just to protect the territory from the other hummer. Would be behavior I'm sure many would expect of males of any species.


<One tip that I have read (maybe in a post on BirdChat from hummingbird guru Nancy Newfield) is to make winter rations with a bit more sugar than the usual 1/4 ratio. The birds may also be able to find small gnats which will swarm even when temperatures are at freezing.>

Has anyone stuck out suet or perhaps peanut butter?  I wonder if they would go for the protein?

Steve

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