Living Sanibel: Ruby-throated hummingbird
The regions’ smallest bird, the ruby-throated hummingbird is an amazing creature. One of the few birds able to truly hover and the only bird able to fly backwards and upside down, the ruby-throated hummingbird beats its wings so fast it creates a humming sound. When in flight its feet virtually disappear into its tiny body, making it more aerodynamically perfect.
This bird is found on the islands only on occasion and is far more commonly seen in the summer throughout its northern range. Despite its tiny size, the ruby-throated hummingbird stores enough fat to enable it to fly nonstop across the 600-mile expanse of the Gulf of Mexico twice a year.
The hummingbird is found only in the Americas, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska. There is an amazing 325 species of hummingbirds, though the vast majority of these birds live in Central and South America.
Unlike humans, the hummingbird is able to see things in the ultraviolet color spectrum, which lies far above our eyesight capabilities. This allows the hummingbird to spot the flowering plants upon which they rely for nectar. Fascinating to observe at feeders, it seems to be attracted to the color red. Sadly, this is also a cause of mortality, since it is attracted to the red tops of certain power-line capacitors and is electrocuted when attempting to feed on them.
The hummingbird is an important pollinator, but it also eats nectar-eating insects and tiny spiders. The high-energy diet of nectar is essential to its metabolic needs, with some hummingbirds known to have heart rates as high as 1,260 beats per minute. That is roughly 1,200 times faster than the heartbeat of a well-trained athlete. As if that isn’t enough of an amazing feat, it has been calculated that when flying forward, a hummingbird’s wing can exceed 4,500 beats a minute, or 75 beats per second.
The ruby-throated hummingbird will readily come to artificial feeders, attracted by sugar water. Only white granulated sugar has been proven safe to use: a ratio of one cup sugar to four cups water is the most common recipe.
The hummingbird is seldom preyed upon as an adult, but the size of its tiny eggs-smaller than jellybeans-and chicks make them vulnerable to being eaten by predators as small as lizards, mice, and tiny snakes. Some of the South American species, especially the highly specialized birds, are endangered, but the ruby-throated hummingbird appears to be doing well throughout its range, possibly in part because of the innumerable feeders put out across the backyards of North America every summer.
This is an excerpt from The Living Gulf Coast – A Nature Guide to Southwest Florida by Charles Sobczak. The book is available at all the Island bookstores, Baileys, Jerry’s and your favorite online sites.