Khamis, 13 Mac 2014

Most Beautiful Bird in the World, Hummingbird

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Hummingbird has more to offer more than how it’s look, even the smallest bird in the world coming from the family of hummingbird. There’re many species of hummingbird around the world. In the North and South America only there are more than hundreds of them. So what we’re looks up too? The Ruby-throated Hummingbird:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) easily recognize from its throat’s color of iridescent red, this type of color also possessed by Anna’s Hummingbird whilst the throat is more to purple-pink. They’re nectar’s eater and will travelling around the garden to find flowers to get its nectar. Peoples also feed them from a feeder made suitable for them by mixed some sugar ¼ with water. They always prefer their feeder to be in red.

female ruby-throated hummingbird
Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird at man made feeder.

This small bird also a migrating species during the winter they will travel to South by crossing the Mexican Gulf in a single flight. In order to do this they must store their energy before the flight begins. The whole journey will take around 800 km (500 mi). So the hummingbird will stored this energy in the form of body fat.

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird size is around 7 to 9 cm (2.8 – 3.5 in) long and has 8 to 11 cm (3.1 to 4.3 in) wingspan. Their weight can range from 2 to 6 g (0.071 to 0.212 oz.). With males averaging 3.4 g (0.12 oz.) and the females is average at 3.8 g (0.13 oz.). The males as me already know have beautiful iridescent ruby red in their throat with mostly greyish green vest and greyish white below. Their head also in iridescent color green. The females have simple color of green back, black mask with white behind and white underparts.

female ruby-throated hummingbird flower
Female feeding on nectar from flower.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about hummingbird is their ability to float in the air. Instead of moving forward they can stay in the same place or moving backward. During the courtship display they will perform a special talent of flying this wills includes dive and rise and also horizontal arcs. Meanwhile the Ruby-throated Hummingbird is polygynous soon after the mating the male will fly away and the females will take care all of the parental care.

Since the size is quite small so hummingbird can easily be a pray for another species of birds, cats, lizards, snakes, bullfrogs, green frogs and also many other animals that feed on small birds. Instead for hummingbird itself they don’t just consumed on nectars but sometimes also catch insects for protein.


Well, maybe I hope that’s good enough for you to get interested to know more about this hummingbird and will look after them during the summer. Remember the different between the Ruby-throated Hummingbird than Anna’s Hummingbird they’ll looked almost exactly the same.

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