Hummingbirds For Mom

Archive for January, 2009

The gorgets of a hummingbird are made up of flat iridescent feathers that flash bright colors whenever the sunlight is reflected at certain angles.  It is only the male hummingbirds which have these iridescent feathers.  The gorgets will serve many important purposes.  The hummingbird lacks a "song" so the male will use the gorgets to help them attact the female during courtship displays.  They are also used as a way to threaten territorial intruders.  Gorgets are also used to help identify various hummingbird species.

This video shows a mother hummingbird feeding her baby.  I enjoyed it because it isn’t something that most of us will have the chance to witness for ourselves.  I hope you will enoy it as well.

One of the remakable qualities of the hummingbird is its ability to hover.  Have you ever wondered how long a hummingbird can hover?  The answer may shock you, as it did me.  A scientific test revealed the amazing answer.  The test revealed that hummingbirds have the remarkable abity to hover in one place for as long as 50 minutes.  

Hummingbirds will tipically follow the same migratoy route year after year.  How does a young hummingbird that has just hatched learn the migratory route to take?  The answer will probably surprise you.

The newly hatched young have no memory of past migrations on which to rely.  They do have the urge to put on a great deal of weight, to fly in a particular direction for a certain amout of time and the urge to look for a place to spend the winter.  Once the hummingbird has learned the route the hummingbird will likely trace that same route each year of its life.

What triggers the urge to migrate in these birds?  The urrge to migrate is triggered by a change in the length of the day or photoperiod. It has nothing to do with what the temperature is or the amount of food that is available.  It may surprise you to discover that hummingbirds will migrate south when the amount of food available is at its greatest abundance.