At 11:50 PM 2/16/2006, Pterodroma at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 2/16/2006 5:14:30 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
>Ladyshrike writes:
>Tell me you don't put red food coloring in it...
>
>Well, but of course I do. And why not? I know, I know, some people think
>it's bad for the hummingbirds. I don't put a lot in there, just enough to
>add a splash of color which goes nicely with all the lush greenery around
>here. Why would I want just plain ordinary clear watery gray when we have
>quite enough of that as it is around here naturally, especially in the
>winter? This ever so slight amount doesn't seem to harm the hummingbirds
>except maybe cause them excessive exuberance and a tendency bark
>explosively during, ...ughm, "the dive noise."

My apologies for the delay in replying to this - I've been away at a
conference.

I would refer anyone who puts red dye into their hummingbird food to the
following link:

http://www.hummingbirds.net/dye.html
http://www.paghat.com/reddye.html
http://www.trochilids.com/dye.html
http://home.mindspring.com/~tzunun/reddye.htm

If this doesn't persuade you, just keep on Googling.

Snopes, which is in business to debunk "rumors", has a page "debunking" the
danger of red dye to hummers. All I can say is that this is one more
example (I have had many) that Snopes doesn't know everything. Skeptics
love Snopes, but I don't. They seem to mainly research "facts" that would
debunk things, only "bunking" the ones that are unavoidably true.

What you won't find on the Internet, or at least I didn't by googling, is
the following:

The Ramsey Canyon Preserve, probably the greatest place in North America
(north of Mexico) to see numbers of hummingbird species and individuals,
does not put red coloring in their food. Decades ago I was closely
acquainted with staff at Ramsey Canyon, who were working and/or
volunteering there when they were putting red coloring in the food, as did
most other people at the time. Someone decided to investigate the causes
of death of hummers at the preserve and started doing autopsies. What they
found was that many if not most of the dead hummers were riddled with
tumors. They decided that as with humans, it was likely that much of the
cancer in hummers was likely caused by modern lifestyles. So an executive
decision was made to eliminate the red dye immediately. This feeding
philosophy gradually grew among bird lovers, until we reached the point
where most who seriously feed birds do not put red dye into hummer
food. Subsequent autopsies at Ramsey have shown that the tumor rate has
also gone down.

So to those who put ANY red dye at all into hummingbird food, particularly
doing it for their own benefit to brighten up their own human surroundings,
with the rationalization that it "doesn't seem to harm the hummingbirds,"
all I can do is say PLEASE STOP IT.

Mary Ann Chapman
Seattle