Another Tiny Wonder In Nature!

A Bird Every Child Should Know

It is barely 2 inches long and travels over 500 miles without stopping. What is it? If you guessed hummingbird, you are correct.  One quarter cup sugar and 3/4 cup water, a plastic  'dollar store' feeder and a good spot for observing is all you need to watch these amazing acrobats  fly up, down, sideways, and backwards. With precision timing they flutter between "drinking" through their long beak, backing up an inch or two, hovering, and returning to their energy drink.  Unlike other birds, they cannot stand on the feeder’s edge, so they balance and hover while the sugary mix attaches to the tiny hairs on their grooved tongues.

There are 400 varieties of hummingbirds throughout the world. In New England we only have the red-throat hummingbird.  His red throat like his other iridescent  colors come with legends described in Hummingbirds by Adrienne Yorinks.

  

 If you are thinking about a hummingbird project with a younger child, try Steven Ofinoski's Hummingbirds. In this child friendly book he gives a step by step way to attract a hummingbird that encourages the young reading to follow direction.

Backyard Hummingbirds by Megan Borgert-Spaniol like many of children's nonfiction today, includes internet sites for further reading.

Melissa Gish in Hummingbirds explains how the hummingbird's forked tongue " is slightly grooved and covered with tiny hairs that soak up the nectar..." 

Hummingbirds’ weak feet make it necessary for them to  either spend their time flying or perching. Here is a ruby-throat hummingbird perching most of one Sunday afternoon at my feeder. Either he was displaying his red gorget to attract a female or I was lucky to capture the light rays so that they showed his iridescent colors.

After he gets going he can beat his wings at 80 times a second. How many times does his little heart beat? Find the answer at http://home.olemiss.edu/~larryago/hummingbirds/funfacts2.html



This may be the last time my hummingbird visits. Soon he will make the 500 mile trip over the Gulf of Mexico. He will  not stop along the way. It will take him about 18 to 22 hours to reach Mexico.

Happy  Humming!

Breaking science news by James Gorman. On September 8, 2015, he wrote a great article and produced a video  in The New York Times (science) about some new thinking on how the hummingbird’s tongue is shaped and how it allows this tiny bird to drink nectar. Go to http://nyti.ms/1hTgWW1