Interfering with Nature
Hummingbirds are not supposed to stick around when the weather gets cold enough to freeze them out of the trees at night. Really not. But when there’s an endless source of high-calorie goo, they stay in the neighborhood, leaving the idiot who put the hanger up with the hard realization that the thing now has to be filled every day (yep, six cups, every day) or else the tiny bird-brains will drop from their perches at night. And if said idiot is thinking of going away for a few days..?
I’ve heard of cat-sitters, and plant-sitters, but hummingbird-sitters?
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message 1:
by
Kellye
(last edited Dec 19, 2013 05:17AM)
(new)
Dec 10, 2013 10:33PM
I adore you, and I am loath to correct you, but I simply must. Misinformation is misinformation, however beloved the (works of) the source. Consult any well-informed birding website (I use Cornell Lab of Ornithology's allaboutbirds.org but you may simply Google "when to take down hummingbird feeders" for context) and they will tell you that day length is the trigger for hummingbird migration, not food availability. "Take down your feeders or they won't migrate and they'll die!" may be the most pernicious and needless old wives' tale in birding. The birds actually need your 'endless source of high-calorie goo' to nearly double their body weight up until the very moment they turn to fly south. Leaving feeders up until a hummingbird has not been spotted for two weeks (or in my location in New Mexico, one feeder all winter) saves lives by giving stragglers a source of energy after most other resources are played out.
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That's interesting and makes sense.
