Bird in the hand...
The Mother, The Auntie and myself attended a delightful presentation in Alton, IL put on by the Illinois Audubon Society (www.illinoisaudubonl.org).
While the speaker and bird handler (sorry, his name was not in the brochure) was inside an auditorium discussing facts about hummingbird, the rest of his team had hung humming bird feeders outside. We learned that metabolism of a hummingbird is generated from a heart that beats 1200 times per minute and consumes the equivalent in human food of 250 quarter pound hamburgers a day!
Throughout the discussion we learned that the average life span of a hummingbird that survives the first year; only 20%, they typically live 3-5 years, but some, up to ten years. Outside, the hummers were swarming several feeders.
To capture them in order to band them for tracking purposes, all but one of the feeders were removed, leaving the one remaining inside a cage with a trap door.
Timidly, a hummer or two fly nearby and stop, fly and stop, not quite sure what is different about that feeder but one went in. SNAP, the trap door swung shut. A handler gently reached in, lifted the hummer up and put it in a small cloth bag, and hung it from a peg attached to what looked like an old tie rack on a pedestal.
The whole process took just a minute. The handler grabbed his tools; a gapped special pliers so that the gapper in-between the pliers' handles do not allow the pliers to shut too tightly, pre-sized tiny little bands...about 200 hundred to a safety-pin and his gentle hands. Already this year, he has banded over 1200 in several locations.
Over 340 known species in the Americas and Cuba range in size from 2 1/4 inches up to an 8-inch species from the Andes Mountains.
Number one recommendation for birders: do not use any red food coloring, honey or artificial sweeteners in your feeder. It shortens the life-span of the birds because they cannot excrete it.
Standard solution is 1 Cup of white sugar to 4 Cups water and can be increased to a a 1:1 ratio in the fall but change your water frequently and keep feeders clean. While boiling/microwaving is not required, it will pasteurize the mixture and keep it from spoiling as quickly.
After banding the bird, he picked a gentleman from the crowd, placed the female hummer into his hand. Somewhat disoriented, it sat quietly until the handler smacked the underside of the volunteer's hand, sending the bird back into natural flight.
It was an awesome sight!
I'll be on the road for the next ten days so if I do not make it back to the on-line garden before I get back, enjoy the hummers and check out the Audubon Society page for more information.
