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From: donnam@thor.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Donna Mitchell)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Hummingbirds
Message-ID: <1298@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 26 Apr 89 14:36:54 GMT
Sender: news@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM
Reply-To: donnam@thor.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Donna Mitchell)
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Organization: NCR Corporation, Rancho Bernardo
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The  following article is from a November Sunset magazine.   I'm 
not sure of the year, but I would guess it was about 1986.  


         You  can  do hummingbirds a favor this  month--and  make 
         your  garden  a more interesting  place--by  putting  up 
         feeders  with  a high-protein formula  instead  of  just 
         sugar water.

         Each bird's daily diet normally consists of insects  and 
         about  half its weight in nectar.  But in the  fall--and 
         especially  during  a  drought--nectar-bearing   flowers 
         start  dropping off,  and  this  valuable  food   source 
         disappears.     A   high-protein   formula   can    help 
         hummingbirds  survive; and a sugar-water diet, they  may 
         just get weak and die.

         Use  a  commercial  blend formula, or make  you  own  by 
         mixing 1 part dextrose, 1 part powdered milk, and 1 part 
         soy isolate (you can buy the dextrose and soy isolate at 
         health food stores).  Add 1 teaspoon of the mix per pint 
         of  nectar (nectar is 1 part sugar, 3 parts water);  red 
         food  coloring added to the mix will help  initially  to 
         attract hummingbirds.

         If  you  clean  out  your  feeder  every  day,  you  can 
         substitute  honey  for sugar.  But remember  that  honey 
         water  ferments  after  one  day,  and  that  can   give 
         hummingbirds a fatal fungus of the tongue.


The  only comments that I would make to this are: First,  that  I 
use 1 parts sugar to 5 part water during the summer, and a 1 to 4 
ration  during the winter.  Second, this was a  November  article 
for  the  Southern  California  area.  I  would  guess  that  the 
"november"-hint would be earlier in the year in most of the U.S.
and Canada.