The Hummers

It's such a treat to see a hummingbird in your yard!  Two years ago, I had a visitor in my back yard mimosa tree with its proliferation of fuzzy pink puffs. I was thoroughly entertained and enchanted by my visitor. Last year, I planted more red flowers and bought a red hummingbird feeder, in hopes of attracting more of the little birds. There were none.

Hummingbirds are "the smallest birds in existence . . . found only in the New World," Seeking the Smallest Feathered Creature: Humming Birds Peculiar to the New World, Are Found from Canada and Alaska to the Strait of Magellan.  Swifts and Goatsuckers, Their Nearest Relatives, Alexander Wetmore, National Geographic Magazine, July 1932, p. 65.  Although they range throughout both North and South America, they are most abundant near the Equator in the Andes mountains.  They vary in length from two inches to eight inches.

We see the hummingbirds suspended before flowers with their long beaks into the flowers sucking nectar.  The author points out that spiders and other insects are trapped in the nectar and hummingbirds will eat these also.

"In their feeding, hummers, like bees, carry pollen from blossom to blossom" (p. 69).

Related to the hummingbirds are the Swifts, the fastest of all birds, the group "that produces the edible birds' nests prized among the Chinese for making soup" (p. 72).  (Trust me, you don't want to know how these birds make their nests!)

Another close relative is the "goatsuckers."  All three kinds of birds have characteristically small feet.  The goatsuckers are active only at night.

The section of colored bird paintings in this article is quite beautiful.  The hummingbirds are brilliantly colored.  The swifts are mostly black and the goatsuckers' coloration is shades of brown.  "In the United States humming birds are found in greatest variety in the Southwest, only one species, the ruby-throat, ranging east of the Mississippi River" (p. 65).  And that is what I shall look for this summer!