Friday, June 29, 2012

The Birds That Hum


Hummingbirds!  Hummingbirds are amazing birds.  They are the only birds that fly backwards.  This comes in handy when they fight over the bird feeder.  They can fly up, down, backwards, forwards, left, right, and they can hover without a second thought.

They’re called humming birds for obvious reasons but if anyone who’s reading this blog hasn’t seen a hummingbird then I’ll explain.  They beat their wings about 70 times a second which leads to 4,200 times a minute.  This makes a soft whirring noise and their wings ‘hum’!  But hummingbirds vary in size so the bigger the hummer, the less they beat.

Of course, all this beating of the wings takes energy, so you can imagine how much these small birds need to eat.  They can eat up to eight times their body weight in one day.  They also must eat every 5 minutes or they’ll starve to death.  This means that bird feeders are much enjoyed.  But if you do put up a hummingbird feeder don’t dye the sugar water red!  It’s really bad for the little hummers and anyway, the feeder should have colorful flowers as the places where the ‘nectar’ comes out, so red water won’t attract them any more than clear.

And expect a lot of fighting among the hummingbirds because that’s just the way they are.  The smaller the animal, the more aggressive they get.  This works with dogs and horses as well.  Don’t worry that the hummingbirds will hurt each other, because the only weapon they have is their aggressiveness… and sometimes they get close enough together so that their wings beat together, but that’s nothing.  It only sounds bad. 

There are 356 types of hummingbirds found.  And the hummers are only found in North and South America, so I always try not to become used to their awesomeness.  I have a bird feeder outside of my house and the little hummers are almost always coming and going.  My brother says that they remind him of me – in the aggressiveness he means.