• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Western Emerald

Peter Dexter

Well-known member
Feeding from Guzmania diffusa, a bromeliad.


35225168500_6c1b045eb9_b.jpg
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Feeding from Guzmania diffusa, a bromeliad.


35225168500_6c1b045eb9_b.jpg

Amazing iridescence!

It's a paradox of risking between bg so noticeable but worth it if you can mate successfully!

Note that "Feeding" here is merely to get sufficient energy to fly at high speed. There food is actually insects!

Asher
 
Your hummingbirds are so pretty. We only have one kind of hummingbird here and won't be seen before this summer as we have plenty of snow. It's a nice change to see your birds. Where do you live?
 

Peter Dexter

Well-known member
Asher perhaps I should have said "nectaring". But isn't everything we eat supposed to give us energy? To grow, to move etcetera...?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Asher perhaps I should have said "nectaring". But isn't everything we eat supposed to give us energy? To grow, to move etcetera...?

You, perhaps realize the totality of the behavior, but most folk imagine that the delicate sipping of nectar is all the food they get!

Most have no clue that these birds have to catch insects to survive!

Asher
 

Peter Dexter

Well-known member
Oh yes that's true. Sometimes I can watch a White-necked Jacobins snagging tiny insects in the air for several minutes.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hummers and other carnivorous hunters of prey! How they hunt!

Some idea of the range of speed of the hummers wind beat.


"High speed cameras were used to determine the number of flaps per second and wind tunnels to establish lift. The wingbeat rate of 1000 beats per minute in the documentary was a none too accurate average. Depending on species, Hummingbirds can beat their wings at between 12 - 80 times per second. The largest, the Giant Hummingbird, has a wingbeat rate of around 12 - 15 beats per second. The Rufus and Ruby Throat beat their wings around 50 times per second and a study revealed that 75% of the lift was from the down beat and 25% from the up beat.

The Amethyst Woodstar Hummingbird was once recorded beating its wings 80 times per second and it is believed that the Bee Hummingbird, the smallest of the species, may be capable of even greater numbers of beats per second. This extraordinarily high beat rate would be reduced during flight and the term 'beat' is perhaps a little missleading when the bird is hovering, since the wings move in a more circular motion, giving the hummingbirds the ability to be the only bird which can fly backwards.

Just how long a hummingbird can keep up the higher rate of beats per second, I don't know, but to extrapolate the beats per second into beats per minute might be wrong, since it is unlikely that the bird would hover continuously for such a length of time. To do so would result in the Bee Hummingbird being extrapolated to something in the order of 5400 beats per minute. I think it clear that the bird could not sustain such an effort.

I think the documentary quoted the number of beats in terms of minutes for effect. As I have done above, to say '5400 per minute' has more impact than to say '90 beats per second', which the Bee Hummingbird is thought to be capable of." Source without change from here]



Some prey organisms, often escape being eaten, not by faster speed, but by outmanouvering the predator about to grab them! This is very true of deer or antelope being chased by a cheetah or lion. Instead of trying the imposible and accelrating away, the potential meal will slow down ancd turn, a feat that the cat cannot match. Half the time, the prey escapes. Otherwise, there would be no survivors of either of them, as all the eatable animals would have been cleaned off the hunting kingdom of the predators. I think that hummers have evolved to outmanouver the almost impossible changes in direction that some flying insects are capable of. the ability to circle in place of even revers and twist its neck, makes it a very cometitive insect killing machine!


All this wind beating, to be able to outmanouver twisting and turning insects on the wing, (as opposed to using more efficient forward flight), costs immensely in energy expenditure. So hummers have efficiently divided their labor to enrgy collection, ie refueling and nutritious feeding, for muscle and tissues to be kept in good shape!

Dragon flies, major royal hunters of flying insects, have a novel stratagem. They map the predicted location of the prey in front of them based on its speed and then automatically calculate a flight line so that as it skims over the prey, the rear legs of the dragon fly grab the insect and start ripping it to pieeces. That way the dragon flies legs for a continuous conveyer belt of food supply to the voracious mouth parts at the front! Noting is as efficient!

Asher
 
Top