A Monograph of the Trochilidae or Family of Hummingbirds
Hummingbird Facts and Family Introduction
The Hummingbird Family
Hummingbirds comprise the family Trochilidae, among the smallest of birds, with most species measuring in the three"-5" range. They counterbalance only a few grams.
They characteristic long slender needlelike bills adapted for reaching deep into tubular flowers to extract nectar.
The Hummingbird Diet
Broad-billed Hummingbird (Photo courtesy of the author)
Their diet consists of nectar from flowers (scarlet is the favorite color), pocket-size insects such as aphids and spiders, and sometimes even pollen and sap.
Hummingbirds feed in many small meals, consuming modest invertebrates and up to twelve times their own body weight in nectar each day.
Many plant species rely on hummingbirds for pollination and provide nectar and tiny insects in commutation. Hummingbirds staunchly and aggressively defend a feeding area, or feeder, even when not feeding.
Flying ... and Walking
The beat of their wings is and so rapid, up to 55 times a second, that a "humming" audio is produced, and the wings announced blurred. They are the only bird species that tin can hover, and fly backwards, or even upside down. The ability to hover allows the hummingbirds to sip the nectar of plants and flowers.
A hummingbird can't walk or hop, but can shuffle with its extremely short legs, which are not very strong.
Resting
Hummingbirds take the ability to go into a deep resting period, called "torpor", in which their respiration and centre rate go very ho-hum. This tin can happen in cold weather, and the metabolic rate can drib to 1/five of normal.
Talking and Communicating
Rufous Hummingbird
Hummingbirds accept a diversity of calls, chips, chatters and squeals to communicate with each other. Each species has its own "linguistic communication" to alarm other hummers or to challenge "invaders" of their feeding territories.
Life Expectancy of Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds, similar all wild animals, can exist victims of natural likewise as homo-made hazards.
Young hummingbirds must deal with rain, hail, common cold weather condition, wind, snakes, squirrels, cats, dogs, ants and larger birds. And hummers take to navigate effectually houses, telephone poles, glass windows and buildings.
Plus, other man-fabricated obstacles such equally ecosystem destruction and the use of pesticides take a negative bear on on hummingbird populations.
Hummingbirds migrate in the bound, and once more in the fall. Migration is always a challenge for hummingbirds, who must fly huge distances to live in an surroundings that is warm and has a plentiful food supply. Potent head winds, hurricanes, and cold fronts are difficult to fly through.
The average life span of a Scarlet-Throated hummingbird is estimated by experts to exist 3 - 5 years. Most deaths occur in the first year of life. The tape age of a banded Ruby-Throated hummingbird is 6 years, eleven months.
Mating and Pairing
Hummingbirds practise not "pair up" every bit do many birds, but instead the male and female go their own way after mating is complete. The male person will move on to other females. The female is left with the task of edifice the nest, incubating the eggs and raising the young birds.
White Hummingbirds
Although somewhat rare in nature, there are indeed white hummingbirds! In that location are three types, a true Albino, and a Leucistic hummingbird ... and a mixture, known as Pied (or Piebald).
An albino hummingbird features white feathers along with pink optics, nib and feet. These hummingbirds are very rare, and are the result of a genetic mutation that stops the creation of any dark pigment.
Read about Albino and white Leucistic Hummingbirds.
Hummingbird Nests and Eggs
A hummingbird'due south nest is very modest, usually about ane.5" in diameter. Eggs are likewise small-scale, less than 1" long, about the size of a jelly bean.
Hummingbird on nest (Photo courtesy of the author)
The female lays her eggs on different days. The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird lays 2 eggs. Blackness-chinned Hummingbird, Anna'south Hummingbird, Costa'due south Hummingbird, Calliope Hummingbird, Wide-tailed Hummingbird, Rufous Hummingbird and Allen'due south Hummingbird all lay one-3 eggs. Gestation period is nigh xvi-eighteen days.
The Near Common Hummingbird Species
The hummingbird family unit is very large, with over 330 species and 115 genera, generally due south of the Us. Hummingbirds are found just in the Western Hemisphere, with almost half the species living in the "equatorial belt" between 10 degrees north and south of the equator. Fewer than two dozen species venture into the U.South. and Canada, and only a few species remain year-circular.
This is a list of the xviii most common hummingbird species found in Northward America and featured on this website:
| Common Name | Scientific Name |
| Allen'southward | Selasphorus sasin |
| Anna'due south | Calypte anna |
| Berylline | Amazilia beryllina |
| Black-chinned | Archilochus alexandri |
| Blue-throated | Lampornis clemenciae |
| Wide-billed | Cynanthus latirostris |
| Broad-tailed | Selasphorus platycercus |
| Buff-bellied | Amazilia yucatanensis |
| Calliope | Stellula calliope |
| Costa'southward | Calypte costae |
| Green-breasted Mango | Anthracothorax prevostii |
| Lucifer | Calothorax lucifer |
| Mexican Violetear | Colibri thalassinus |
| Rivoli's | Eugenes fulgens |
| Cerise-throated | Archilochus colubris |
| Rufous | Selasphorus rufus |
| Violet-crowned | Amazilia violiceps |
| White-eared | Hylocharis leucotis |
Where Are Hummingbirds Found?
In the Eastern and Central United States and Canada, the near mutual species is the Ruby-Throated hummingbird. Several species are in the Gulf region.
In the Western U.s.a., one will often find Anna's, Blackness-Chinned, Calliope, Broad-Tailed, Allen'southward, White-eared, and Rufous hummingbirds. In Texas and the Southwestern U.s., all species will be plant from time to fourth dimension.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the merely species regularly seen over most the eastern United States. Ruby-throats are the just hummingbird establish east of the Slap-up Plains, except for the Rufous.
Information technology is about 3 3/4" in length, and metal dark-green higher up. Its notes are a rapid, high-pitched squeaky, chipping audio.
The adult male has a brilliant ruby cherry throat (gorget), blackness mentum, and deeply notched, forked tail.
The female's pharynx is white, and immatures are like in colour to the female person. The female body is slender, with a edgeless, rounded tail with white corners. The female Ruby-throated and Black-chinned are very similar, just have separate ranges. Males use a repeating "pendulum" arch of flight to concenter females.
Hummingbird Predators
Full-grown hummingbirds tin autumn victim to a number of predators including cats, and birds such equally hawks, kestrels, shrikes, roadrunners, and kites. Even bees and wasps can fatally sting a hummingbird. Hummingbird eggs or fledglings in a nest can exist victims of nest-robbers similar bluejays, crows, squirrels, snakes, and raccoons.
Hummingbirds tin also become defenseless in spider webs when seeking silk for nesting textile.
Many people ask ... "Can a Praying Mantis eat a hummingbird?" ... the answer is "Yep". Nosotros have seen it happen on a feeder, and it isn't a pretty sight. Every bit hard as it might be to imagine, "Mantids" can sometimes capture, kill, and eat a hummingbird. The quick strike of the mantid, on a plant or feeder, can immobilize a hummingbird.
And of class there are always those "window strikes" that happen when fast moving hummingbirds wing into windows ... our feel is that probably 95% of these strikes are Non fatal, with the hummer bouncing off and flying off unhurt. Many bird watchers place colorful stickers on their windows to alleviate strikes.
Many people like us accept screen porches. Our porch juts out from the house, and hummers sometimes fly into the screen ... only 98% of the time they just reverse management, and dorsum out with no problem. Only a couple times in 10 years have we had to gently nudge their beak and help them back out!
Hummingbird Central Showcase 2022
We've adult a short YouTube video featuring the hummingbird species found in the United states and Canada.
It also includes some charts comparison similiar species and has a special department dealing with white and albino hummingbirds.
Information technology runs for about 6 minutes, and has soft music to accompany information technology ... have a look, at the Hummingbird Showcase
Source: https://hummingbirdcentral.com/hummingbird-facts.htm
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