Mid-summer can be a slow time in the wildlife photography business. Most of the nesting birds are done raised their young and have retreated to the forests and fields to feed on insects and live a few weeks of the good life before gearing up for migration.

So in mid-summer I find that I turn to hummingbirds for photographic opportunities. Of the nearly 9,000 species of birds in the world, about 320 are a kind of hummingbird. (By the way, that is a lot.) The majority of these hummers are found in the tropical regions of the world. In North America there are 17 species of hummers with most of these found in southeastern Arizona. Sorry to say, we only have one species of hummer in the northland–the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris).

The ruby-throat is a tiny bird measuring only 3” long. Females are slightly larger than the males and have longer bills. An individual hummer weights only 2-3 grams; it takes 5 hummingbirds to equal the weight of a single Black-capped Chickadee and we all know how small the chickadee is.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds often appear to be gray in color when viewed in dim or low light but are bright green when seen in direct sunlight. They have specialized feathers that contain individual cells that will absorb sunlight and reflect only the green spectrum of the sunlight back to our eyes, making them appear green.

Males have a throat patch of specialized feathers called a gorget. The gorget appears black in color until he turns to face you. When sunlight hits the gorget patch it lights up in a brilliant ruby red color as if someone has flipped a switch to a neon red light. The bright ruby color is also a result of reflected sunlight. The gorget is used to impress females for mating. The bigger and brighter the gorget the more the females are attracted.

Hummingbirds received their name from the “humming” noise created by their wings whiz through the air. Hummingbirds flap around 50-60 times per second during normal flight and can reach up to 200 beats per second during courtship flights. (Try doing anything 200 times per second.) They can fly up to 50 mph and usually fly no higher than 300 feet.

Hummingbirds can hover, fly up and down, and are also the only birds that can fly backwards. To power all of that wing activity, the hummers have very large hearts that beat at an amazing 1,260 beats per minute compared to our own heart that beats about 70 – 80 beats per minute. Their heart is so large it comprises one quarter of a hummers total body weight.

They fuel all of their muscle activity with oxygen. They breathe 250 times per minute compared to our own respiratory effort of 12-18 per minute. To keep these flying machines going, hummingbirds have a metabolism that is 40 times faster than our own. They survive on top line fuel—fast acting sucrose (a kind of sugar) obtained from flower nectar. They consume up to 50 % of their own weight in nectar daily. That would be the same as you or I drinking a bathtub of soda daily.

Hummers feed on nectar about every 10 minutes throughout the day but flower nectar is not the only food on their menu. Tiny insects such as gnats and flees make up most of their non-nectar diet and provide them with the protein not found in a sugar water diet.  So for me, if it’s mid-summer, than it’s hummer time. Until next time…