Department of Moronic Avian-Related Headgear (DMARH) - Report #1

[dale]

As some of you may remember, Lou and I made a deal back in this thread:
http://rfalconcam.com/forum/index.php?topic=707.0
regarding this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ24oBaO56w
which hummingbird feeder I had incautiously admired.
The deal was that if he sent me a reasonable homemade facsimile of this cranially-mounted artifact as a Christmas gift, I would wear it and post images of myself doing so, forever destroying what reputation I might have left as a moral person.
On 4/22 I received a large box containing the following items (as well as succinct instructions that, in the interest of full disclosure, included off-color acronyms not suitable for posting on a family-oriented forum).
Further documentation to follow in subsequent reports.
Please notice that there are FIVE feeders, TWO of which resemble humongous strawberries.
As I understand, the glittery flower stickers are Dana's fault.

[MAK]

    What a rush aye?!     

[Dumpsterkitty]

Way cool!  I might just have to borrow it...once you're all your hummingbirds are full!   

[Donna]

More more!!!

[dale]

this is more or less what we're talking about here. For the record, the sunglasses served to hold the contraption up and balanced.

[gayle]

Your headgear is impressive!  Lou, you are guite the engineer!

[schlaf374]

Hahahahaha did you get any hummers?

Maybe when your not wearing it, you could hang it from the porch..

 Good job Lou & Dana

[Bird Crazy]

I think its kinda neat. 

[Carol P.]

Wow!  That is quite the impressive contraption I have seen in a very long time!   

[Donna]

Wow!  That is quite the impressive contraption I have seen in a very long time!   

Does it have a patent? Could be a winner. I can see us all wearing them.  

[dale]

Hahahahaha did you get any hummers?
Maybe when your not wearing it, you could hang it from the porch.
Good job Lou & Dana

Darn tootin' it's a good job. It's totally stupid!

And very wearable and balanced, especially with sunglasses to help support it.
This was a trial run at Bong State Recreation Area (jokes on the name at your own risk; he was a WWII flying ace, 'nuff said) - a splendid huge managed prairie between Kenosha and Burlington, WI, where scores of tiny but anatomically perfect killer whales incubate swallow eggs in boxes (documented in a separate post) and there are a LOT of hawks. I saw FOUR huge RTHs playing, with the sun shining red through them. Plus one dead blue snake (I suspect I disturbed someone's dinner). Plus a bluebird (big score for me, I love them), herons, goldfinches, etc. Anyway, the bird feeders by the nature center get a huge variety of birds, and I have seen hummers there, but the center was closed so I couldn't ask if they had seen any recently. I also spent a certain amount of time assembling said moronic headgear for the first time, mixing up the red stuff, filling the five feeders, and, not to put too fine a point on it, farting around. So, to answer your question, Linda, no hummers, but through no fault of the birds'. 
I attracted some bugs, so what else is new.
I will do migration-related research and try more seriously at a later date.

[Patti from Kentucky]

I will do migration-related research and try more seriously at a later date.

There is a hummingbird festival in Western Kentucky around the first weekend of August, but basically anytime between early August and Labor day they see peak hummingbird numbers (often 200 a day).  It's at a visitor center at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area where they have a magnificent hummingbird garden and bunches of feeders to catch the little terrors on their way down the Mississippi flyway.  Your headdress could be quite a hit there, and could generate some sales for Lou, in case he'd like to go into the hummer-helmet business  .  It can be untolerably hot and humid here during August, so Lou would need to invent a way to air-condition your bike helmet.

Patti

[dale]

There is a hummingbird festival in Western Kentucky around the first weekend of August, but basically anytime between early August and Labor day they see peak hummingbird numbers (often 200 a day).  It's at a visitor center at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area where they have a magnificent hummingbird garden and bunches of feeders to catch the little terrors on their way down the Mississippi flyway.  Your headdress could be quite a hit there, and could generate some sales for Lou, in case he'd like to go into the hummer-helmet business  ;).  It can be untolerably hot and humid here during August, so Lou would need to invent a way to air-condition your bike helmet.  Patti

migration is probably the only way I'd get more than one hummer-customer at a time, with how territorial they are, but this conjures up the image of 200 hummingbirds in rowdy, brawling queues at each of five dangling feeders, with me stuck in the center -- pretty nightmarish.
I could suffer hummer abrasions.
Add to that a little helmet-mounted fan...
But then the whole purpose of this is to make me look like an idiot, which I am usually more than willing to do, so maybe...;)

[dale]

next they're gonna tell me that I myself am licensed premises when wearing the feeder helmet and that I need a permit to wear it...
http://fieldguidetohummingbirds.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/vampire-hummingbird-expert-urban-myth-remix/
btw a link in that article goes to another, at Live Science, entitled:
"Tree Shrew Sober Despite Drinking All Day."  Just sayin'.

[Lou]

 

Dale - Glad to see you following through on your end of the bargain. I love the pics. Thanks for letting us all share your adventures in the DMARH.  Hopefully, you'll attract a darned hummingbird with all those feeders hanging around your cranium!  And you're right..Dana did add the decals. 

Gayle..Engineer?  Nah - I don't have a left brain.  I actually didn't account for the weight of the hummingbird solution. Luckily, Dale figured out use of sunglasses to help prevent the hat from going too far forward! Hah!

Donna - no patent pending on the DMARH. (Dale change the name - she must have figured out my original name, The BFHH.)

Patty - I like the idea of adding an air conditioner. We don't want to outclass good old Roy Road too much though. I'll think about that though.

Okay Dale - thanks again. Looking forward to a successful venture!

Lou