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freezing bird baths
- To: "carolina birds" <carolinabirds@acpub.duke.edu>
- Subject: freezing bird baths
- From: "Golden Cockerel" <goldencc@boone.net>
- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 14:13:17 -0500
- Reply-To: "Golden Cockerel" <goldencc@boone.net>
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Hey,
Joshua's note made me think: should I put sugar (or some other
substance) in my bird bath to keep it from freezing and therefore keep more
birds happy? Salt might be the obvious, but might give thirsty birds high
blood pressure (smile). Is there anything of the sort on the market that is
"bird-friendly"? Anybody out there putting sugar/salt into bird baths?
Walton Conway
Boone, NC
goldencc@boone.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
To: carolinabirds@duke.edu <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: Hummingbird feeding
Nicely put Steve. I should add two more points. First, the freezing
point
of water drops dramatically when something is dissolved in it, sugar for
instance. While the temperature regularly drops below water's freezing
point in NC in the winter, it much more rarely (if ever) drops low
enough
to freeze sugar water. My birdbath has frozen over a few times this
winter so far, but the hummingbird feeder has not.
Second, note that hummingbirds virtually never show up in an area where
hummingbird feeders are the only available food source. The Anna's last
winter came to Judy Walker's house because of her Pineapple Sage patch,
hence the sudden surge in this plant's popularity in NC. In my yard, the
feeder is up, but there are no flowers and as yet no Sapsuckers, and so
no hummers either. As Steve said, the feeders do not attract the
hummers,
they just make them easier for us to observe. The scientific evidence on
seed and suet feeders seems to indicate that the same is true of them.
So keep on feedin'...
Josh
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology
jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/