Lots of luck is right, Bamatufa. During the years I was a boat captain in the Gulf oil fields, the migrating birds would land on our boat, totally exhausted. Most all of them would die there, if they landed. I've thought about that a lot, and unscientifically have my ideas of why they died. In salt air, or with salt spray getting on their feathers, they would become heavy. And if they landed, they would need fresh water, but also they would need to dry their feathers. And, they would preen their feathers to clean them and get them back in place. I submit that preening causes them to ingest sea salt, and their little systems cannot take that. Only once during my years on the water did I catch one of those birds, and I washed it off and left it in a dark place. We had no live insects to feed it, but when morning came, I released the little guy, and off he flew. I hope he made it. It was not a hummer though. Many of the offshore oil platforms have colonies of birds living on them, some are swallows which catch bugs in midflight. But I've seen them seeking a bug near the water, and a wave rise up and slap them out of the air. There they floated with wings outspread, with death all around them from fish or gulls, because they could never rise to fly again.

I love watching the Hummingbirds.I have had several here for last 3 weeks, fighting over the feeder I put out.I just have one feeder out right now, but a little later when more hummingbords start coming and fighting over the feeder,I will put out abother one. Jean

We bought the Umbrella Cockatoo pair about ten years ago. We adopted the Congo African Grey over a year ago, and just recently adopted a beautiful Blue and Gold Macaw. The Grey and the Macaw are real talkers!! Macaws don't usually talk, but this one talks quite a bit and readily learns new words, very smart! Congo African Greys are the real talkers of the parrot world, having vocabularies of hundreds and hundreds of words. Alex learns new phrases daily! For those who think these big birds cannot think and use language creatively... I left the feed bowl "door" open and my female cockatoo climbed through it. She does that all the time. And I said to Alex, "Where's Misti?!" He said, "She went out the back door!" I've never said that before or even thought of the food bowl "door" as the "back door" until Alex said it. They are truly beautiful and amazing! Gives me a whole new perspective on this world, being a part of this flock! Michele

Today I had both hummingbirds and a male and female oriole eating out of my hummingbird feeder today. I got some pictures and have to figure out how to post them into this forum - or at the picture gallery. I had to laugh at the comical orioles. They would hang upside down from the feeder to get the nectar that would drip because of their weight causing the nectar to overflow out of the feeder. We have a large tabby cat. He sat in the doorway, and when one of the orioles saw him, you would have thought the orioles were warning each other of the world ending. The chatter was not only LOUD, but VERY fast. I shut the door so they could not see the cat, and within a few minutes, they were back to the feeder, sucking away at the food intended for the hummingbirds, while THEIR orange lay on a wooden peg on the deck railing. Birds are SUCH fun to watch. Squirrels, on the other hand, are a real pain. I caught one today tearing away the grass from a bird's nest. I chased it away, but wonder exactly what it was after. Do the squirrels eat the eggs, or birds??? I guess I never thought about it one way or the other.