HUMMINGBIRDS

WHAT MATTERS

4/12/2016

Dr. C. Branker

There are many beautiful  birds in the world, one of the most fascinating is the humming bird.

Hummingbirds are small, colorful birds with iridescent feathers. Their name comes from the fact that they flap their wings so fast (about 80 times per second) that they make a humming noise. Watching the humming bird when I was a boy growing up was always a specular show. I was always left with questions.

Hummingbirds can fly right, left, up, down, backwards, and even upside down. They are also able to hover by flapping their wings in a figure-8 pattern. 

Their hearts beat at over 1,263 beats PER MINUTE. At at night, they enter "TUPOR" which means they can rest and drop their heart rate to 50 beats a minute to conserve energy.

They have a specialized long and tapered bill that is used to obtain nectar from the center of long, tubular flowers and their feet are used for perching only, and are not used for hopping or walking.

Did I ever wanted to catch one and put it in a cage, but I was talked out of it by my father who explained to me that the bird didn't eat bird seeds and it will die in a cage.

My lesson learnt; if you want to capture and control the life of anything, you better get all the information and knowledge that will sustain its life.

So to with mankind, so many are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

DCB.