The Amazing Hummingbirds (v02.18)

HOME	GMLSRC THE AMAZING HUMMINGBIRDS Last Updated: Monday, October 08, 2007	BACK

BODY

	Weights 3 grams or one tenth of a first class letter. The Calliope hummer is the smallest, weighing 1/10th of an ounce.	Click for larger view.
	Have the largest relative heart size of all birds and are the smallest warm-blooded vertebrate.
	The sun must strike most hummers just right in order to see the colors of the feathers. Color comes from iridescence not pigment ... winking off and on with different light sources and positions of the bird.
	To conserve energy it goes into state of TORPOR at night when heart beat slows to 50 beats per minute and torpor lasts 8 to 14 hours and it takes up to an hour upon awakening to get heart beat and breathing back and temperature reaches 86 degree F. In torpor their metabolic rate is only one-fifteenth that of a normal sleep.
	Heart beats 615 times per minute and takes 250 breaths per minute.
	Flight muscles make up 30% of body weight compared to man's muscles at 5%.
	Beak is very flexible and is not intended for self defense.
	Legs are so weak and tiny that it cannot land on ground, but must rasp for small perch with toes.
	Their tube-like tongues are longer than their beaks.
	Can live up to 12 years, but the average is 3 to 5 years.
	Tiny brains are 4.2% of body weight, proportionately the largest in the bird kingdom.

EGGS

	Are one half the size of a jelly bean and the nest is walnut sized.	Click for larger view.
	Egg is the smallest in the world ... two eggs in each nest.
	Ratio of the size of the nest to the hummer is the largest in the bird world.

FLIGHT

	The only bird to fly backwards. Can fly 45 miles per hour forward and backwards and even fly upside down doing backward somersaults. Have been clocked at 60 MPH along side cars.
	Wings normal beat 70 times per second, but up to 200 times per second in display flight.
	Flies 40% of the time and perches the other 60% of the time.
	When flowers stop blooming, mites catch rides in Hummers nostrils and on bill to next flower that has food for mites. The mites ride to Mexico in the fall on Hummers.
	Two Hummers can fly vertically in a display together 1 to 2 feet apart.
	Hovering, they expend, relative to size, ten times the energy of a man running nine miles per hour.
	Wings rotate at the shoulders and turn over at mid-stroke.
	Consume 8 to 12 times a much oxygen as other small birds.
	Can stop in a instant from 60 miles per hour.

FOOD

	Instinctively prefer red, but feed at other colors also.
	Consume one-half its body weight in sugar only each day.
	Feed 5 to 8 times per hour for 30 to 60 seconds at a time and may visit 1000 flowers per day.
	f a man had the hummer's metabolism rate, he would eat 285 hamburgers each day. A man weighing 170 pounds, and living like hummers would bur 150,000 calories per day and lose 100 pounds.
	Females will fight with young begin to compete for food.
	Have no sense of smell and find food by sight looking for colorful blossoms for nectar and picking small insects out of the air and off leaves.
	Sugar water (1 par sugar to 4 pars water) is sufficient for diet since they supplement diet with insects and spiders and nectar from flowers.
	Can store fat up to 50% of its weight ... this is for long journeys for 200 to 500 miles.

HABITS

	Fiercely aggressive and will attack larger birds including Jays, Crows, and even Hawks. They will fight each other at the feeders.
	Females do not teach the young to fly ... it's instinct.
	They do not suck nectar through their bills, but lick nectar with their long tongues at the rate of 13 licks per second.
	They bathe by flying through sprinklers or sprays, and flutter in wet foliage or dip in a puddle of water.
	They are VERY territorial (usually about 1/4 acre per bird). The female with hers and the male with his.
	He leaves his territory to go near hers to mate. She stays and cares for her young.

MATING

	They mate in dense low shrubbery, and not in mid-air as some might think.
	They have two pea-sized eggs at each mating. He can mate several females in one season and females can have two broods in one season in warmer climates.
	A U-shaped flight display is made by the male during courtship and during aggression. In courtship male soars high and dives at great speed toward female spreading feathers and making a sound like "peek".
	The only time the male sees the female is at mating.

MIGRATION

	The DO NOT migrate on the backs of Canada Gees as some people might think. They migrate at different times and to different places. They migrate alone.
	Males migrate south about two weeks before the females.
	Leaving the feeder up late in the fall WILL NOT ALTER MIGRATION PATTERN.
	East coast hummers migrate to Florida and then 500 miles across Gulf of Mexico. Midwest hummers go to Mexico through Texas.
	Ruby-throats migrate 2,000 miles each spring from Panama to Ontario Canada, averaging 25 MPH for 20 hours over the 500 miles of the Gulf of Mexico. Rufous hummers migrate the longest distances.

NESTS

Click for larger view

	The young stay in the next from two to three weeks and then the fledge never returns again.
	Nests are the size of a 50 cent piece and is made from plant fibers and spiders' webs.

SPECIES

	Smallest birds in the world. The smallest is 2 1/4 inches in length and the largest is 6 inches.
	In north and south America there are 343 species, but only 15 or these exist in the United States. Of these 15, 14 are found west of the Mississippi River. Ruby-throats are only hummers east of the Mississippi.

IF YOU KNOW ANY FURTHER AMAZING FACTS ABOUT HUMMERS PLEASE CONTACT ME.

Hollis Johnson
1-616-869-5809 -or-
1-602-893-6090

Thanks

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