Subject: Sugar vs Sweetener: can hummingbirds tell?
Date: Jul 15 21:27:52 2004
From: carenp - carenp at totalise.co.uk



they may not be able to tell the difference by taste, but they will die
pretty quickly if fed on sweetener... their little bodies need every
calorie they can wrench from their food, and sweetener just won't cut it...

if you want to starve them, feed them artificial sweets...

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
usually found at juanita bay park, kirkland, WA
carenp somewhere near the vicinity of yahoo and dot com


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Rachel Lawson
Sent: Thursday, 2004 July 15 20:49
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Sugar vs Sweetener: can hummingbirds tell?


I was filling the hummingbird feeder, this evening, when my husband
joked that I should make the nectar with artificial sweetener. This
started me wondering; can hummingbirds really not tell the difference,
using clues like taste, viscosity, etc.? It seems like they should be
sensitive to such things. Humans claim to be able to tell the
difference between sugar and sweetener, and even between types of
sweetener.

Rachel Lawson
Seattle
RachelLawson at softhome.net