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From: Art Warner on 16 May 2010 16:48
On Sun, 16 May 2010 11:05:27 -0700, "Frank ess" <frank(a)fshe2fs.com> wrote:

>What I'd like to know is: barring stray garage doors, what do
>hummingbirds die from? Do they go to sleep in their nests or on their
>branches and just not wake up? Do they have heart attacks or strokes
>and fall out of the sky?

Their most common cause of death in present times are electrified-fences.
The insulators on the fenceposts are usually bright yellow or red colored,
as a warning to humans who are nearby them. In the hummingbirds' foraging
they mistake these for flowers and try to find a place to get nectar from
them. Should some foliage or a metal or wet fencepost be near enough to act
as a ground the fence-wire will fry them. If you live anywhere there are
electric-fences and you want to save a few dozen to hundreds of hummingbird
lives per year; get a can of flat-black, flat khaki green, or brown
spray-paint and ask the electric-fence owner if you can spray-paint all
their insulators.

In my yard I did watch a neighbor's cat snatch one out of the air one day.
The cat was sitting still beneath the feeder waiting for them to hover. I
eventually painted that cat and many of their other cats with a thick layer
of dirt. The count in the last half a year is now around fourteen
dirt-painted cats. Three just this week and I spotted three more last night
that need a good coat of dirt too. I only managed to shoot the collar off
of one last night. It moved at the very last moment. A brand-new collar was
on this one. The neighbor must be replacing their cats as fast as I can get
rid of them. The neighbors appear to be very slow learners. While I get to
have fun with target practice every day or so on live moving targets. It'll
be back, they always do ... until they can't return to anywhere.

From: Frank ess on 16 May 2010 17:27


Art Warner wrote:
> On Sun, 16 May 2010 11:05:27 -0700, "Frank ess" <frank(a)fshe2fs.com>
> wrote:
>
>> What I'd like to know is: barring stray garage doors, what do
>> hummingbirds die from? Do they go to sleep in their nests or on
>> their branches and just not wake up? Do they have heart attacks or
>> strokes and fall out of the sky?
>
> Their most common cause of death in present times are
> electrified-fences. The insulators on the fenceposts are usually
> bright yellow or red colored, as a warning to humans who are nearby
> them. In the hummingbirds' foraging they mistake these for flowers
> and try to find a place to get nectar from them. Should some
> foliage or a metal or wet fencepost be near enough to act as a
> ground the fence-wire will fry them. If you live anywhere there are
> electric-fences and you want to save a few dozen to hundreds of
> hummingbird lives per year; get a can of flat-black, flat khaki
> green, or brown spray-paint and ask the electric-fence owner if you
> can spray-paint all their insulators.
>
> In my yard I did watch a neighbor's cat snatch one out of the air
> one day. The cat was sitting still beneath the feeder waiting for
> them to hover. I eventually painted that cat and many of their
> other cats with a thick layer of dirt. The count in the last half a
> year is now around fourteen dirt-painted cats. Three just this week
> and I spotted three more last night that need a good coat of dirt
> too. I only managed to shoot the collar off of one last night. It
> moved at the very last moment. A brand-new collar was on this one.
> The neighbor must be replacing their cats as fast as I can get rid
> of them. The neighbors appear to be very slow learners. While I get
> to have fun with target practice every day or so on live moving
> targets. It'll be back, they always do ... until they can't return
> to anywhere.


My Granddad used to sing a nearer-to-original version of this song:
http://www.ciscohouston.com/lyrics/cat_came_back.shtml

His version ended with:

Gave him to a stranger
Going up in a baloon
Said to hand him out
To the Man up in the moon
He reached him out to Peter
So all the people said
Peter's fingers slipped
And the cat

fell

dead


Oh, I'm happy tonight
For that cat's out of sight
'Til we meet on that Beautiful Shore

But ...

The Cat came back
For he couldn't stay awayyyyy

--
Frank ess
From: krishnananda on 16 May 2010 19:00
In article <8pWdna24YfB1rm3WnZ2dnUVZ_q6dnZ2d(a)giganews.com>,
"Frank ess" <frank(a)fshe2fs.com> wrote:

> What I'd like to know is: barring stray garage doors, what do
> hummingbirds die from?

Badminton.
From: Rich on 16 May 2010 19:26
On May 15, 8:21 pm, "Frank ess" <fr...(a)fshe2fs.com> wrote:
> http://www.fototime.com/29129D6E3283931/orig.jpg
>
> "OK. So what?"
>
> "Exactly".
>
> --
> Frank ess

Somehow, the crappy camera phone quality and the dead bird mesh.
From: Mike Russell on 16 May 2010 23:52
On Sat, 15 May 2010 17:21:00 -0700, Frank ess wrote:

> http://www.fototime.com/29129D6E3283931/orig.jpg
>
> "OK. So what?"
>
> "Exactly".

Yeesh.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com
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