George M. Jett wrote:  I suggest starting with 1 sugar water and 4 parts water as starter food to give them a bit more energy. Remember they just flew a long way...
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Hi, George - your recipe (1 part/ounce sugar (white only seems to be the gold standard) to 4 parts/ounces water) seems to be the norm for year round feeding.  I excerpted the following from:

http://www.hummingbirds.net/feeders.html#recipe

For the sake of completeness: another view of syrup concentration appeared in the May 1993 article (link below) by Reed Hainsworth and Larry Wolf, both noted hummingbird researchers. However, it's not clear that the health of the birds was considered, or merely their preferences - like children, hummers may tend to eat more candy than is good for them - and there is still a suspicion that high sugar concentrations can cause liver damage in hummingbirds. When I wrote Dr. Hainsworth asking for a reference to a more rigorously-scientific treatment of his data (i.e., a published paper), his reply dodged the question. Without reflection upon anyone's reputation, I stand by the opinion of the majority of hummingbird researchers, that a 1:4 mixture has been shown to do no harm, and any other formula must remain suspect.

http://www.hummingbirds.net/hainsworth.html

Yard birds
Juncos put in a rare appearance yesterday at the feeders...no sign of Siskins yesterday eve in the brief time i had to observe although they may still be around.

Jim (Michael) Speicher
jugornought—at—yahoo-dot-com
Bethesda @work :(
Broad Run_S. FRED Co @home :)