Jacki Bricker <seaotter at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> It seems that as soon as my rhodies and azaleas stopped blooming, all "my"
> hummingbirds disappeared. What on earth happened? I have two hummingbird
> feeders that are getting no attention whatsoever. Can someone shed some
> light on this (as I am relatively new to hummingbird watching)? I miss the
> little guys!

Jacki, here in the Idaho panhandle (where rhodies are marginal at best)
I've always noticed that the hummers come to feeders in two waves: the
first starting at migration but disappearing about when the abundant (in
my neighborhood) trumpet vines flower their bright orange tubular flowers
thoughout the woods, and a second time after the trumpet vines are bloomed
out, when the hummers magically reappear in the largest numbers with their
young of the year. I don't know its the trumpet vines that are the
competition with my feeders, just that the timing is right.

and Denny Granstand described super-gluing his eyecaps:

> I rolled mine up about a 1/16th of an inch and superglued them in
> place. It solved the problem.

Maybe I didn't know what I was doing, but I've always assumed that eyecaps
were designed for non-eyeglass wearers, and I've always completely folded
them back to increase the eye releif for my 'four-eyes'. There's always
enough of a solid rim around the eyepiece lens to keep my glasses from
contacting the lens, and I sure couldn't comfortably use many (if any)
binoculars with the eyecaps extended.

Tom Besser
besser at turbonet.com
Moscow ID