Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Smile when you say that)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: HUMMINGBIRD WARNING
Message-ID: <43515@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 1 Aug 90 17:06:55 GMT
References: <32320003@hprmokg.HP.COM>
Organization: Out in Left Field
Lines: 55

jackiec@hprmokg.HP.COM (Jackie Christopherson) writes:

>       The article stated that if you feed these birds "sugar water", 
>       you are giving them something that will *soften* their bills...

Interesting. Sounds like an advertisement for a commercial mix (which is, if
you look at the ingredients of the commercial mixes, primarily sugar water.
It may use different forms of sugar than white sucrose, but it's still
sugar. So, for that matter, is nectar.

This article also flies pretty heavily in the face of most research I've
seen and many years of experience by many hummingbird enthusiasts. 

>       I now get 
>       the feed mixture at my local pet store.

See? it worked.

>I read the article in 
>       some authoritative magazine.  Will continue to look for it. 

I'd love to see the reference. One article, authoritative magazine or no,
doesn't mean it's true, especially when there isn't a body of evidence to
back it up. There are a LOT of wive's tales in hummingbird feeding, and many
of them get propogated without a lot of thought and research.

There is, in fact, some research indicating the red dye in those commercial
mixes is in fact dangerous to the hummers. So swapping to the commercial mix
might be making things worse.

I don't see how this can be backed by the facts. Sucrose and water or
fructose and water -- there isn't a lot of practical difference, and I don't
see how swapping in sucrose can, physiologically, do this. Someone with a
better feel for current scientific research who wants to correct me, feel
free, but I don't buy this one bit.

>       Also, it is great to feed the birds in the Springtime, but not 
>       towards the Fall because if they think there is food for them, 
>       they will ignore their natural instinct to go to warmer weather 
>       in the winter...this also could be disasterous. 

Another long-term and invalid wive's tale. There have been a number of
studies (I've read a couple of reports on them in the last 18 months) show
it's complete bushwah. There are hummers that migrate and hummers that
don't. They'll leave when it's time to leave (especially in the frost belt,
where you have to worry about such things. Here in the Bay Area, where we
don't get hard frosts, it frankly doesn't matter if they decide to not
migrate, since they don't die off in the cold). Feed until they stop
coming.

-- 
Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

We tend to idealize tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested 
with losers and nut cases -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden