Opinion |

Hummingbirds’ design has served them well

Hummingbirds can’t walk.

That may sound surprising when you consider the mobility of these tiny buzz birds.

With jet-like speed they can fly forward and backward, shoot directly up or dive rapidly and even hover in one place. But they can’t walk.

I’m almost embarrassed to say it has taken me this long to recognize that.

I guess we just assume that any of nature’s creatures with legs and feet are able to walk.

It was a new camera that helped me make this fascinating discovery.

Wanting to test it, I decided to engage in a sit-and-see adventure watching and photographing hummingbirds at my backyard nectar feeders and a nearby bird fountain.

For more than an hour I quietly sat and joyfully watched as hummingbirds swarmed the patio. They would often hover while drinking at feeders, or occasionally they perched on the bubbling tip of the nearby fountain emitter.

They would zoom in with such blinding speed that you could almost hear them better than see them, stopping on a dime and hovering, perhaps moving backwards until settling to drink.

Their amazing speed that can reach 60 mph, and their agility is achieved through powerful wings that flap at a rate as high as 200 beats per second.

Hummingbirds have tiny hearts, about half the weight of a potato chip, which pump at about 1,200 beats per minute when they are most active.

These are social creatures, tolerating humans well. I have often had them fly right up to me to see if I might be a source of food, and if you are patient they will perch on your hand while feeding.

Female hummers are often drab, but males sport intricate feather patterns that will often glow with iridescent colors as early-morning sunlight hits them just the right way.

These tiny birds, weighing roughly the same as a penny, are fascinating and as I enjoyed watching them, I began to realize I had never seen one walk.

Despite all their amazing qualities, I discovered they can’t walk.

As always, nature had a good reason to design hummingbirds this way.

They are all about conserving weight.

Nearly one-third of a hummingbird’s weight comes from the huge pectoral muscles that power their buzzing wings.

Something had to give, so the compromise was small feet to allow them to perch, build nests, scoot sideways and care for their feathers, but no muscles to allow them to walk or hop.

The design has served them well.

Some species of hummingbirds migrate long distances without stopping, including the ruby-throated hummers that cross the Gulf of Mexico nonstop, a distance of over 500 miles.

This consumes incredible amounts of energy, so they feed almost constantly, visiting a thousand flowers a day or more, darting to your feeders or snatching tiny insects from the air until the last whispers of daylight.

This high-energy demand requires them to eat about half of their body weight of nectar daily.

To survive long, cold winter nights, hummingbirds can enter a suspended torpor that slows their metabolism to about one-fifteenth of normal.

Without this ability, they would not survive more than a few hours on cold nights.

The hummingbird’s inability to walk does not appear to inhibit them in any way, and simply adds to the joy of watching one of nature’s tiny, beautiful creatures.

Providing nectar feeders for hummingbirds is a great way to introduce youngsters to nature.

If you are lucky, you might also become friends with a regular visitor like Morning Joe who comes to visit many mornings as I enjoy coffee in the patio.

House wren nesting update

By the time you read this, our six house wren chicks will have left the Mt. Hoo nest box.

We have followed the process with a tiny camera installed in the nest and pictures taken from outside, and nesting progress has been posted on “Updates from Mt. Hoo,” on Facebook.

This year, nesting began with the first egg laid on April 15, and a total of seven eggs.

On May 4, four of the seven eggs hatched, and two more on May 5. The seventh egg was cracked and not viable.

On May 16, adult wrens began what I call a coaxing phase where they only fly to the nest box entry hole, requiring the chicks to come up to get food.

This became more aggressive and is apparently designed to encourage the chicks to leave the nest.

Readers have asked for more photos of the process, so my next column will be a photo essay of the nesting process.

Cowan is a freelance columnist. Email ernie@packtrain.com or visit erniesoutdoors.blogspot.com.