"Little rooster crowing there must be something on his mind
Little rooster crowing there must be something on his mind
Well I feel just like that rooster
Honey ya treat me so unkind."
from "Meet Me in the Morning" by Bob Dylan
While our friends Ivan and Jane are back in Newfoundland, I'm watering all of their plants daily on their RV lot. Ivan set up an automatic, underground watering system with a timer, but that's all dependent on maintenance turning the irrigation water on in a timely fashion. That isn't happening. The last few days I've been joined by a companion, a rooster, no doubt an escapee from someone's back yard. Mr. Rooster is very resourceful in quenching his thirst. He waits until I spray the bougainvillea, then sips the moisture off the leaves.
Nena has talked about buying chicken feed, but we're facing the same dilemma associated with hummingbirds, that is keeping a feeder up too long and delaying their migratory flight. With Mr. Rooster, we wonder if by feeding and watering him, we are delaying his return to his familiar home environment. So, you see the ethical dilemma.
At one time it was commonly thought that leaving a hummingbird feeder up into the fall would delay an individual bird’s migration but we now know this is not the case. In fact, banding studies with Buff-bellied Hummingbirds, by far the most common hummingbird in the Brownsville area, indicate that very possibly the hummingbird you see at your feeder every day is not the same individual you see next week. A bird will show up and feed for a while, vigorously defending the feeder from other hummingbirds, and move on to be immediately replaced by another individual. The exception, of course, is nesting birds but they are done long before migration time. Most Buff-bellied Hummingbirds do leave the area in the late fall but there are always a few that opt to spend the winter in the area. So leave your feeder up all year to help out the birds that do stay. You might even be visited by a new species that has wandered over and decided to spend the winter in the Valley. Mother Nature will not be thwarted by a bottle of sugar water. By the way, I hope you don't use food coloring in your feeder. The birds will easily find it without the dye and there is a school of thought that the coloring agent is bad for them. And never use honey. It promotes the development of potentially fatal fungal infections in hummingbirds. As for chickens, I don't have a clue, however, if that is a fighting cock you may be saving it's life by keeping it away from home.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. . . We do use clear liquid, no honey, although we've not kept it filled lately. We do see hummingbirds as Nena has a large flower garden that draws them in.
DeleteJim