My understanding is that Hummingbirds migrate south during the winter?

That article said many migrate, but some in the upper Pacific coast don't. There's at least one that winters in the Willamette valley/Oregon coast areas; but I've never seen any in the winter.

 

There used to be a theory that to get from Canada to Mexico they hitched a ride on the backs of migrating Geese.
Max.

The Canada Geese are another interesting story. I guess the geese learn migration from the parents or senior geese. Geese made it here, just across the LaKe Erie and simply stopped years ago. The abundant food sources I guess? Anyway, now all of them just winter here in NE Ohio and no longer migrate. Not quite sure what's up with that? The ones that are here just stay here year round. Seems the young haven't a clue what migration is all about. Maybe they understand the Ohio welfare system so have no reason to move out?

We now resume our regular programming.

Ron

 

A slight sidetrack of the OP's thread...
My pond is about 6'x8'x2'. It can hold about 200 gallons, but I only put in 150 to allow for the rainy season.
My fish were free from Craigslist; the largest was about 5". The boy who owned them told me I'd better take good care of them, so I'd rather that the ones I put out not die because one already died after moving. They were living in a 17 gallon tub (9 total). I put the 3 large ones, over 8" long, outside as soon as I got around to finishing the pond. It was too cool and they stopped eating and went into hibernation.

The small fish will spend the winter in the tub. My Wife isn't happy about that, but I don't want to kill them.
I'd like to avoid die off. I've invested too much time in them to treat them like they're disposable.

"Experts" say the pond should be 3' to avoid freezing deaths, but I don't think we've had such hard freezes. My backup plan is to use a pond heater to maintain at least a small opening and a bubbler to keep the water oxygenated.

Hi,

That's amazing to hear because i once built a large tank from fiberglass and put a plate glass window on the front. Filled it with water and put a large mouth bass into it that i had caught one day out fishing. It lived for some time but eventually died.
These common fish are quite interesting to look at, even though they are not usually considered aquarium fish.

 

Mod Note:
We all obviously all enjoy discussing how much we care about the welfare for our wild and domestic critters.

Unless the TS protests.? , we are moving the Thread to the Off Topic Forum so that we can continue this interesting Topic.

Eric

 

Filled it with water and put a large mouth bass into it that i had caught one day out fishing. It lived for some time but eventually died.

There's a surprising amount of knowledge required to keep fish alive.

I put the goldfish in the pond without doing a nitrogen cycle, so I'm doing a "fish in" nitrogen cycle. I need to keep monitoring nitrite level to keep it low enough for them to survive. I'm adding nitrobacter to accelerate the nitrogen cycle.

pH is also an issue. Goldfish tolerate quite a large range, but they don't tolerate quick changes of more then 0.2. Our well water and rain water are quite acidic (pH is too low for my test kits). To make my well water more neutral, I used baking soda. To calculate the correct amount to facilitate the desired change, I measured pond depth while I was filling it. Some people who care for goldfish/koi say to just throw a box of baking soda in the water and keep some precipitated out. I think that gives you a maximum pH of 8.4, but I don't want to go that high; and sodium level could become an issue. May change my mind when it starts raining; better to have a constant 8.4 and not have to worry about die off after a heavy rain. A decent downpour will put a foot of water in the pond in a day.

Then there's GH, KH, nitrates, CO2, O2, iron, ...

 

There's a surprising amount of knowledge required to keep fish alive.

I put the goldfish in the pond without doing a nitrogen cycle, so I'm doing a "fish in" nitrogen cycle. I need to keep monitoring nitrite level to keep it low enough for them to survive. I'm adding nitrobacter to accelerate the nitrogen cycle.

pH is also an issue. Goldfish tolerate quite a large range, but they don't tolerate quick changes of more then 0.2. Our well water and rain water are quite acidic (pH is too low for my test kits). To make my well water more neutral, I used baking soda. To calculate the correct amount to facilitate the desired change, I measured pond depth while I was filling it. Some people who care for goldfish/koi say to just throw a box of baking soda in the water and keep some precipitated out. I think that gives you a maximum pH of 8.4, but I don't want to go that high; and sodium level could become an issue. May change my mind when it starts raining; better to have a constant 8.4 and not have to worry about die off after a heavy rain. A decent downpour will put a foot of water in the pond in a day.

Then there's GH, KH, nitrates, CO2, O2, iron, ...

Hi again,

It's been a very very long time since i did this sort of thing but i was a very enjoyable hobby and so i bought several books on the subject, for example the Innes Book to name one, and had very good luck. I was even able to 'operate' on two fish born cojoined at the stomach. I saw that one looked much more healthy than the other so i carefully separated them with a sharp razor, unfortunately ending the weaker ones life. The healthy one live for several months as a normal fish but with a slightly deformed stomach.

I had a lot of fish tanks back then because i kept breeding and breeding them