Feathered Jewels

By

Thea van Doorn

The humming bird is so small that people sometimes mistake it for an insect called the Northern Hawk moth. It is so tiny it measures from the tip of its bill to the tip of its tail about three inches, sometimes just a little more.

There are four different species of humming birds. They are the Rufous, the most common, the Ruby throated, the most distributed, the Galliope, the smallest, and the Black-chinned hummingbird, is the scarce one.

Their looks, behaviour, and being so small make them different from other birds.

The Rufous male is a cinnamon-red with a shiny green patch on the top of his head and scarlet throat. The female Rufous is green, green on top of her back and has a reddish brown tail and side, she has a small red and green spot on her throat.

The Ruby-throated male has a shiny metallic green back the belly is a grey-white. Around his neck he wears a collar of silky ruby-red feathers. Depending on how the light strikes it or his silky collar might even look orange or black. The female Ruby-throated humming bird, looks almost the same except, she does not have any red on her throat and has white spots on her side feathers.

The Calliope humming bird male has a shiny green colour with a purplish streaky throat. The Calliope female is also green on her back but has a dusky streak around her throat and brown sides.

The Black-chinned humming bird resembles the Ruby-throat only the male has got a deep violet throat that sometimes does change to black.

The humming birds fly in the most remarkable way. They dart with a terrific speed, stop and go forward; sometimes they seem to stand still in the air yet all the time their wings go at an incredible speed. They hover like a helicopter in one place before a flower, beating their wings furiously, about 60 beats per second on the average. They are a bit like a jet starting their motor before actually taking off in flight. Their tiny wings go so fast that they make a sound like a small motor, the buzzing is louder then that of a bumblebee.

The hummingbird migrates to the south in the fall. People at one time thought these little birds hitched a ride on the back of the larger birds. This is not so. They do fly thousands of miles each year. It is now known that they fly the 500-mile distance back and forth across the Gulf of Mexico.

The male after having mated does not take part in family affairs, but takes it easy. He will spent hours-watching insects, while the female is busy building her nest.

The nest is about the size of a walnut on the outside. She moulds the nest on the inside with her body and the inside is about as big as a thimble.

She lays two tiny eggs, the size of a small bean or pea. The eggs will hatch in about 16 days. The babies are no bigger then a honeybee. She feeds her young in the same manner the pigeon mother does feed her young. The bay birds leave their nest in about 21 days but the mother keeps on feeding therefor about two more weeks.

The humming bids, drink the nectar from flowers and use their long tong in the same fashion, you would use a drinking straw. They like flowers such as columbines, honey suckles, trumpet vines, phlox, gladiolus, and all other bright colour flowers, and insects. The sap of trees is also an important food for them. The humming bird will quite often buzz around the woodpecker so he’ll lead the little buzzer to the source of food.

If you like to watch the humming bird, you can make a feeder for them from a drinking jar used for guinea pig or hamster. The solution for the feeder is one part sugar to two parts of water. The solution should be boiled to stop it from fermentation. You should change the solution at least once a week. It helps to paint a spot of bright red or orange on the feeder, the colour will attract the birds. You can also buy a humming bird feeder in almost any pet shop, feed store.

The humming bird is a fierce little fighter. They use their sharp needle like beak for a weapon and the whirr of the wings to fend off intruders that invade their territory and their food supply. They will attack birds many times their own size. The noisy little birds can fly terrible fast and attack from any angle.

The humming bird will find the storms and an unexpected frost his enemy, they also have to be on guard for thorns and they can get tangled in a spider web.

There is joy in knowing that each spring our little feathered jewels return to help pollinate the flowers and bring us that extra special sight and delight in seeing them.