My avian interests are decidedly raptorial, as a falconer and raptor biologist. After my college ornithology classes 40 years ago, I'm today markedly amateurish in regard to Ohio's microavifauna. And this inquiry may be out of place here. If so, my apologies. (But I'm certain a few others have pondered these crucial questions. If they haven't, they merely watch and list birds, not bothering to ponder and explain avian ecology.) Just how can any hummingbird, whether native or incursive or accidental, survive in an Ohio December? Just what are the carbohydrate, lipid, and protein food sources for this bird, this time of year? Is someone feeding it? If so, what? Can a hummingbird maintain nocturnal body temperatures by metabolizing sugars, or, like most species, does it require an ample dietary portion of lipids or proteins? If so, where is this little bird getting these crucial nutrients? There are no natural nectar sources this time of year in Ohio, and not many arthropods to pluck off. Or, lamentably, is this specimen merely burning itself to death in a desperate metabolic self consumption? And lastly, if the bird is destined to die, unable to pass the Ohio winter, what might be its legitimacy as a to-be-listed rare native? Isn't this rare bird merely the result of errant, internal dys-migration functions? How can any of that make the bird a legitimate new member of Ohio's native avifauna? Or, does everyone recognize this bird's appearance in Ohio in this season as a selectional failure, with an appropriate asterisk or question mark in any new spp. list? John A. Blakeman 2412 Scheid Rd. Huron, OH 44839 419-433-5639 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]