Hummingbirds are mostly found in tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. Hummingbirds are the smallest of birds, and they generally range from 3 - 5 inches in size. They have long beaks and medium sized wings (relative to their size). They are colorful and often have red, green, and blue feathers with some grey or tan ones. They are called hummingbirds because humans can pick up on the sound their wings make, and this is because they flap them at high frequencies. You might have known that their hearts usually beet over 1000 beats a minute, but their wings can flap up to 88 times a second. High numbers like that are usually found in smaller species of hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds are very good fliers. They can fly fast in one direction and then immediately stop in less than a second. They can fly backwards and at strange angles. They can also hover for a long time, and hovering takes a lot of energy, especially for a bird that has to beat their wings really fast. The birds take in a lot of oxygen for their muscles, and they must eat a lot to contain energy. Part of the reason they fly so well is their vision. They have a fourth cone, while humans only have three. They have incredibly dense retinal neurons that increase their spatial reasoning, and many good forgers have this trait. The pretectal nucleus region of the hummingbird’s brain is enlarged too, and the pretectal region is responsible for visual processing. This indicates an enhanced ability for reacting to fast-moving stimuli. Hummingbirds are highly sensitive to stimuli and can detect even the smallest motion and reorient themselves correctly.

Hummingbirds are foragers who mostly eat arthropods. They sometimes go near swarms of mosquitoes or gnats and eat them there. They have been known to take spiders and catch insects from a spider’s web and to grab aphids from leaves. They also eat nectar from flowers, and they prefer the ones with sugar content over 10%, but since nectar isn’t nutritious, they need to eat insects to survive. Their tongues are very long and this means they don’t have to open their beaks much when they drink nectar. Their tongue has tubes that go to the side and it works in a pumping motion to transfer the nectar from the flower to the mouth. The hummingbird has a rapid metabolism, this means they need to eat a lot. They tend to eat for 10 - 15% of the day. They can turn the food they get into energy for flying in an hour, so their bodies can produce ATP very fast. While their metabolisms are very high, they can slow down their metabolism and slow down how their body processes water when they sleep. They can sleep for a long time and go into a hibernation-like state called torpor if there isn’t a lot of food available to them. The hummingbird lives a long time for an animal with such a high metabolism. Many die within their first year of life, but the average age is from 3 to 5 years old in North America. The oldest hummingbird recorded was 12 years old.

Males swerve down in a U-shape from a high altitude making a whooshing sound to the female to mate. If the female perches, the male will fly back and forth in front of her. Once mated, the female is the one who creates the nest which takes 6 days. The nests range in sizes because of the range in species sizes. They like to nest about 10 to 50 but usually 10 - 20 feet above the ground on a sloping branch of a tree. The nests are compact cups made out of grass, plant fibers, and plant down. They are camouflaged with moss and the mothers use spider silk to make the nest more sturdy. It also allows for the nest to stretch with the babies. The mother incubates for 12 - 14 days and then nests for 18 - 22 days. At that point the babies are ready to forage but the mother may feed them for an additional 25 days. The babies are born clumsy and almost naked from their tiny white eggs (but big eggs considering the parents’ size). There are only 1 - 3 eggs per brood but hummingbirds only have 1 or 2 (sometimes 3) broods a year.

Hummingbirds are beautiful and interesting as well as extremely hyper creatures.