Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 15:40:25 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: Hummingbird Nutrition MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As I recall the events when Sam Pancake hosted a Rufous Hummingbird in his back yard, several of us suggested that he add fish food to the sugar water. The commercial fish foods consist of dried insects that provide protein in the form hummingbirds usually get it. I believe that is what Sam did and the bird survived. Why are we seeing more hummingbirds in cold weather? Perhaps some of it is due to exploration of new winter ranges as a result of global warming, but I would bet that they have been coming here all along on those long sweeps of southwest air that bring the moisture off of the Pacific, across Mexico, Texas and the southeastern states and up the Appalachians. Those air flows probably account for Cave Swallows, Ash-throated Flycatchers and various hummingbirds that go with the flow, as we know all migrating birds do. Paul Lehman has been preaching about this phenomenon for years and now has a review of the effects of weather on bird movements in the current issue of Birding. So, if they have always come here from the southwest, why are we just now noticing them? For one thing, people are increasingly taking the advice periodically dolled out by Marshall Iliff, Jim Stasz, myself and others to leave your feeders up late into the fall. Now birders are in a position to notice stray hummingbirds. But the other thing that is equally important, to my mind, is that humans have now trained many generations of hummingbirds to recognize feeders as jumbo nectar sources. Just look at the hundreds of feeders throughout the western mountains and deserts. It usually takes a garden with numerous late blooming flowers to attract a hummingbird in the first place, but once they find the feeder they settle in for the duration. So leave your feeders up. Mine stay up all winter just in case a neighbor has a bird in the yard when the flowers die back or the feeder goes dry (or, as happened once, when a well-meaning lady took in her feeder so it wouldn't freeze overnight, but didn't get it back outside until 8AM - long after the Selasphorus had been forced to leave). 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================