[mou] More hummer photos

[Laura Erickson]

I took two photos through my window this morning about 11:15 that aren't 
the best but do add to the tail feather details that we have.  She's not 
spending any time stretching or preening when perched, which indicates to 
me that she's at least moderately stressed.  I haven't noticed her taking 
any insects today, but it's been pretty cold.  So far she's shown little 
interest in the one feeder that has a protein supplement (Kaytee Exact 
handfeeding mix). If anyone has suggestions for other ways I could be 
enhancing or supplementing her diet, please let me know.

If the hummingbird is not bulked up, she probably won't leave--she seemed 
quite unusually hungry the day she arrived, and may have been searching for 
many, many miles for a meal before she found my feeder.  But if she 
succumbs, at least we could have the carcass at the Bell's if someone will 
search.  So if it does get cold in the coming week, when I'm out of town, 
and if she suddenly disappears, I guess it would be a good idea for someone 
to check under my trees--I think she's spent at least a couple of nights 
roosting in one of the spruce trees in the front yard.  My mother-in-law 
will be here, but is 85 so I don't want her traipsing around the yard in 
the cold looking.  Val Cunningham is going to call my mother-in-law 
periodically while we're gone and will send to the listserves any 
updates.For those who are very concerned about the little bird's well-being 
and think we should somehow interfere, in the vast majority of cases I've 
learned about when people have retrieved a hummingbird to save it and 
transport it to a better location, the bird died, probably mostly from the 
stress of capture, so the US Fish and Wildlife Service no longer issues 
permits for this purpose.  We'll do everything in our power to keep her 
going as a wild (albeit somewhat subsidized) bird.  The rest is up to her.

<http://www.lauraerickson.com/Birds/NovemberHummingbird.html>

Oh--I decided to call her Viola, after the character in The Twelfth Night 
who tricks people into thinking she's a boy for a while.  Like Viola, she's 
intelligent, feisty, and independent.  I hope that, as in The Twelfth 
Night, this story has a happy ending.

Laura Erickson
Duluth, MN


Producer, "For the Birds" radio program
<http://www.lauraerickson.com/>


There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of 
birds.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of 
nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

                                 --Rachel Carson