Ruby Throated Hummingbird

Fascinating facts about the Ruby Throated Hummingbird

• A ruby-throated hummingbird's heart beats 250 times per second — faster than a hummingbird's wing flaps. During a deep sleep called torpor, their heart rate plummets to 36 beats per minute, a metabolic free fall that lets them survive cold nights without starving. They wake each morning by shivering themselves back to life, burning fuel so frantically that their temperature swings from 48°C to 40°C in minutes.
• Every spring, ruby-throats cross the Gulf of Mexico nonstop — a 800-kilometre journey over open water with no place to land or refuel. Weighing just 3 grams, they double their body weight with fat beforehand and fly for up to 20 hours straight, powered entirely by the calories they've stored. Many don't make it; the Gulf claims thousands each year.
• Male ruby-throats perform a dive that reaches speeds of 320 kilometres per hour, faster than a Formula 1 car. At the bottom of the dive, they pull up sharply and their tail feathers vibrate, producing a loud chirp that females hear as a sonic boom. The entire display lasts one second and conveys everything a female needs to know about his fitness.
• A ruby-throat visits 1,000 flowers per day to survive, returning to the same flowers on a 10-minute loop because they know exactly how fast each plant refills. Their memory for flower location is so precise that if a single bloom is moved a few centimetres, they'll hover at its old position first, searching the empty air before finding it again.
• The ruby throat — the iridescent patch that gives the bird its name — isn't red in colour because of pigment. It's a trick of light: the feathers contain microscopic structures that reflect only red wavelengths. In shadow, the throat vanishes to black. Males flash their throats at females and rivals, using light itself as a weapon.

At a glance

About the Ruby Throated Hummingbird

As the Ruby Throated Hummingbird darts through the warm, golden light of a summer's day, its iridescent feathers glimmering like polished jewels, it embodies the very essence of restless energy, its rapid wingbeats a blur of motion as it flits from bloom to bloom in an insatiable quest for nectar. With a fluid, almost ethereal grace, it navigates the intricate tapestry of its surroundings, its tiny form weaving in and out of the lush vegetation with a precision that belies its breakneck speed. In this whirlwind of color and movement, the Ruby Throated Hummingbird is a true marvel of nature, a fleeting glimpse of beauty that leaves the observer breathless and bewitched.

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