The Book of Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in) range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12–80 times per second (depending on the species). They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound created by their beating wings, which sometimes sounds like bees or other insects. To conserve energy while they sleep or when food is scarce, they have the ability to go into a hibernation-like state (torpor) where their metabolic rate is slowed to 1/15th of its normal rate. When the nights get colder, their body temperature can drop significantly and thus slow down their heart and breathing rate, thus burning much less energy overnight. As the day heats back up, the hummingbirds’ body temperature will come back up and they resume their normal activity. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph); they are also the only group of birds with the ability to fly backwards. Individuals from some species of hummingbirds weigh less than a penny.
Green Violetear at a flower >
Female Black-chinned Hummingbird
Purple-throated Carib feeding at a flower
A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovering in mid-air
Hummingbird flight has been studied intensively from an aerodynamic perspective using wind tunnels and high-speed video cameras. Writing in Nature, the biomechanist Douglas Warrick and coworkers studied the Rufous Hummingbird, Selasphorus rufus, in a wind tunnel using particle image velocimetry techniques and investigated the lift generated on the bird’s upstroke and downstroke. They concluded that their subjects produced 75% of their weight support during the downstroke and 25% during the upstroke. Many earlier studies had assumed (implicitly or explicitly) that lift was generated equally during the two phases of the wingbeat cycle, as is the case of insects of a similar size. This finding shows that hummingbirds’ hovering is similar to, but distinct from, that of hovering insects such as the hawk moths. The Giant Hummingbird’s wings beat is as low as 12 beats per second, the wings of medium-sized hummingbirds beat about 20 to 30 beats per second and the smallest can reach 100 beats per second during courtship displays.
Aerodynamics of flight
A trail of wake vortices generated by a hummingbird’s flight. Discovered after training a bird to fly through a cloud of neutrally buoyant helium-filled soap bubbles and recording airflows in the wake with stereo photography.
Anna’s Hummingbird, Calypte anna performs personal grooming.
Aztecs wore hummingbird talismans, the talismans being representations as well as actual hummingbird fetishes formed from parts of real hummingbirds: emblematic for their vigor, energy, and propensity to do work along with their sharp beaks that mimic instruments of weaponry, bloodletting, penetration, and intimacy. Hummingbird talismans were prized as drawing sexual potency, energy, vigor, and skill at arms and warfare to the wearer. • The Aztec god Huitzilopochtli is often depicted as a hummingbird. The Nahuatl word huitzil (hummingbird) is an onomatopoeic word derived from the sounds of the hummingbird’s wing-beats and zooming flight. • One of the Nazca Lines depicts a hummingbird. • The Ohlone tells the story of how Hummingbird brought fire to the world. • Trinidad and Tobago is known as “The land of the hummingbird,” and a hummingbird can be seen on that nation’s coat of arms and 1-cent coin as well as its national airline, Caribbean Airlines. • Chrysler’s gear-reduction starter motor used from the early 1960s to the late 1980s was nicknamed the “Highland Park Hummingbird” after Chrysler’s hometown and the starter’s distinctive cranking sound. • In the past hummingbird feathers were used due to its beauty and iridescent colours and hues to decorate different articles, like for example to dress some of the miniature birds fitted in the singing bird boxes.
In myth and culture
Aerial photograph of hummingbird image as part of Nazca Lines in Peru
A color plate illustration from Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur (1899), showing a variety of hummingbirds.
Calliope Hummingbird feeding two chicks in Grand Teton National Park
Hummingbirds will either hover or perch to feed; red feeders are preferred, but colored liquid is not necessary.
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