The Hummingbird Lure Shirt

The Editor

Bird Watcher's Digest

149 Acme Street

Marietta, Ohio 45750

editor@birdwatchersdigest.com

To the Editor:

In The Backyard Question Box article by Kevin J. Cook in the Jan. - Feb. 2004 issue of Bird Watcher's Digest, there were comments and suggestions about always wearing drab and non-colorful clothing while birdwatching. However, there is at least one exception to this rule: clothes for watching hummingbirds. In my California hippie days, I used to sew velvet shirts and I also did some tie-dyeing of fabrics. I combined these two activities by first sewing a white velvet shirt and then dyeing it bright yellow topped with tie-dyes of concentric rings of orange and red. I was out walking one afternoon wearing my colorful creation, when suddenly a hummingbird flew up to about three feet from my chest, and seriously examined the flower-like orange and red rings on the front of the shirt. I stood perfectly still for the few seconds that he checked out this new species of flower. Finally, the hummingbird decided that the shirt was just false advertising: a nectar-free decoy and flew rapidly away in apparent disgust. Thereafter, I called this shirt my hummingbird lure shirt. So one should generally wear drab clothing while birdwatching, except for hummingbird watching. As my old 8th grade English so eloquently and illogically put it, "This is the exception that proves the rule."

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

1 January 2004