Re: hummingbird food/ liquuid recipe

My first job out of college was to extract an enzyme from the firefly tails. It is called luciferase. It played an important part in bioresearch at that time. Wanna read more? Here's what we did:

First off, do you guys east of the Rockies know that there aren't any fireflies *west* of the Rockies? I grew up in the west and NEVER say a lightnin' bug 'til I moved east to Magnoliaville! I was astounded to say the least and thought that little wriggly flashing light was a kid sithering around down in our back gully! DH laughed at me and explained that it was a firefly! HOW was I to know -- closest I had ever been to a lightnin' bug was on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland! Have any of you guys seen the firefly "show" in early June in the Great Smokey Mtns? There is one spot in the park where they all twinkle in unison!!! Apparently there are only 2 other places (IIRC) in the world where this happens. One is somewhere in Thailand or Tibet or one of those "T" countried in Asia -- not sure where the third place is. Anyway, it's quite a site to see and DH and I will go back next season to see it again. CiaoMeow >^;;^< .

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their WHISKERS!! Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

Thanks for the link. I was just curious enough to check it out. I only needed to know how to make them work on ME at that particular stage in life. lol Uhmmm......just last week while camping, I showed my son (7), how to make himself glow and how to make that lovely lightening bug jewelry. lol Shelly

Oops! So that's the problem. lol I'm still just as bad as I ever was.

Howdy! I do remember reading about this a few years ago. Thanks for the website addy, Alice. Years ago, while living in Plano (north of Dallas), we had a friend visiting who was enchanted by the lightning bugs in our yard; we fixed up the jar w/ the holes in the lid (quite a little lantern ) and some leaves from the tree they had surrounded; our friend took several of the bugs home to San Mateo (outside San Francisco) to show his wife and kids. They were all charmed, of course; the bugs lived for 3 days, glowing and flashing. I sent along info about "how do they do that?!" and the kids got a little science education included. We had lightning bugs everywhere when I was a kid in Illinois. We just took them for granted. Like butterflies and ladybugs. And I saw all these little marvels on fabric at the quilt show this weekend. One of the vendors speciallized in collecting bug fabric; now that's charming! 8->

Ragmop/Sandy

Actually, I have seen fireflies in Arizona........ up on the Verde near the hot springs. Was I ever surprised because I had never seen them in AZ before.

Pati, in Phx

Tia Mary-remove nekoluvr to reply wrote:

They obviously have great memories, and go back to where they found feeders last year. So much for "bird brains." I've had them hover and scold as I try to hang a feeder, and even land on it and feed while it is still in my hand. I used to like to lure them indoors by placing the feeder just inside an open door, but after getting a couple accidentally into the garage I quit that. Catching them and then trying to clean off all the cobwebs was worrisome.

My favorite Texas bird is the scissortail flycatcher.

OOO -- somebody musst have imported them :-))). I talked to the expert when we were at the Great Smokey Mtns and asked him why we never say any of the little critters out west. He didn't know why -- just knew that they weren't anywhere to speak of west of the Rockies! I bet that was *some* surprise to see the little flashing guys out there! I am still enthralled by them after seeing them for the last 4 summers :-). Something *I* will never forget, you can be sure. CiaoMeow >^;;^< .

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their WHISKERS!! Nothing is complete without a few cat hairs!

I love fire-flies too. When we were kids we would stay up late and our Mom would let us go out and catch fire-flies in jars then we could bring them in and put them in our bedrooms, turn out the lights and fall asleep watching our bugs. : )

Patty in NWO

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