Feather Friday Part 4

Today's Feather Friday birdie is the hummingbird. Take it away G-Mom. Thank you Rambo. Yes....today's bird is the beautiful little hummingbird. Here are some interesting facts about the hummingbird.

1. the hummingbird is the smallest bird and also the smallest of all animals that have a backbone.
2. they have no sense of smell
3. because they can rotate their wings in a circle, they are the only bird that can fly forwards, backwards, up, down ,sideways and hover in mid air.
4. to conserve energy while they sleep or when food is scarce, they can go into a hibernation-like state (torpor) where their metabolic rate is slowed to 1/15th of its normal rate.
5. during migration, some hummingbirds make a non-stop 500 mile flight over the Gulf of Mexico.
6. during courtship dives they can reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour and can average speeds of 20 to 30 miles per hour.
7. they can beat their wings up to 80 times a second during normal flight and up to 200 times per second during a courtship dive.
8. their heart rate can reach up to 1,260 beats per minute. percentage wise, the hummingbird has the largest brain of all birds (4.2% of its total body weight).
9. hummingbirds have very weak feet and use them mainly just for perching

There are sixteen different species of hummingbirds in the United States. There are six known to California. They are the rufous, allen's, anna's, costa's, calliope and black-chinned hummingbirds. I believe the birds below are male Anna's hummingbirds because of the green irridescent back and the red gorget. The birds above are female because they don't have the red gorget. Hope you enjoyed Feather Friday!