I’ve gotten several comments from people asking where she goes every few minutes. The answer is our hummingbird feeder mostly. She also seems to go down the street (probably to a neighbor’s yard that has lots of flowers.)
I decided to research it a little. Hummingbirds will drink nearly twelve times their body weight in nectar per day. They also like small bugs (which gives us another reason to be happy that she is nesting in our backyard.)
A Hummingbird’s metabolism is so high, that they are actually in a constant state of starvation. This causes them to feed for 15% of their day and sit for the other 85%.
At night they enter a state of hibernation called “Torpor.” According to Wikipedia, during torpor their heart rate goes from 180 bpm down to 50. This allows them to survive the night without dying from dehydration.
There is a great Wikipedia article on all this here.
1 comments:
Thanks for posting this - it's fun to watch and quite addicting. In fact...I'm not getting nearly as much work done as I should. Can't wait to watch the eggs hatch!
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