Talk:Hummingbird

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Contents 1 Discontinuity 2 Citizen Bird 3 Hummingbirds in garages 4 how to make hummingbird nectar 5 A pic not used 6 Cleaning feeders with bleach? 7 How fast? 8 Photograph 9 evolution 10 Hummingbird memory 11 Kolibri 12 Going for a ride 13 Urban legend? 14 Removed: MiG-44 15 Removed: Uniqueness of backward flying 16 Other birds resembling hummingbirds 17 Vocalization 18 Appearance

[edit] Discontinuity

The section on making nectar mentions that honey is a bad ingredent because it spoils too easily; however, the WP entry on honey mentions that honey does not spoil (at least in its liquid form). Teleolurian 07:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

-- that's only true of honey that has not been diluted with water. 68.167.250.15 01:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)CJC

[edit] Citizen Bird

On a lark, I picked up an old (copyright 1897, third edition from 1907) children's book "Citizen Bird" for a couple of bucks at a used bookstore. It's got about a hundred of these engravings showing various North American birds; while modern (color) photographs might be ultimately preferable, I can put more of these up if desired. --Brion 21:10 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)

The book can also be gotten online from the Library of Congress website: [1] but the scan quality isn't so hot (grayscale 115 dpi with crappy contrast, 2-bit 50% threshold at 300dpi, or 2-bit diffusion at 300dpi). --Brion 23:20 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Hummingbirds in garages

I've just added a paragraph on how hummingbirds sometimes become trapped in garages. It may seem a bit random and/or out of place. I was motivated to do it because earlier today it happened in my garage, and the first thing I did when trying to understand the bird's apparently strange behavior (why it didn't simply fly out the wide-open door) was look up this article. There was no information about this phenomenon in the article, so I used Google to find it elsewhere.

I thought it was interesting and useful information that possibly deserved to be mentioned in Wikipedia's article. I'm not sure whether I added it in the most appropriate place, or whether it's really worth having in the article at all, so I leave it to the other users to decide.

By the way, I did eventually manage to free the (very tired, but hopefully otherwise OK) hummingbird from my garage. :)

Fusion 01:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] how to make hummingbird nectar

We have a screened in porch overlooking a small forest behind our house in the Hudson Valley in NY. Today a hummingbird came up to the screen pausing in front of where my wife was sitting. It hovered, then did a half lap from the porch to an empty feeder we have back there. I came here looking for an article like "How to Make Nectar." I'll add some good links I found once I learn how to edit pages here.

The article states that boiling the water will purify it, but hummingbirds.net, which is cited in the article for another fact, says "It's not necessary to boil the water. The microorganisms that cause fermentation don't come from the water; they are transported to the feeder on hummingbird bills." It also mentions the fact that the feeder does not provide all the essential nutrients, but provide the fuel that helps the hummingbird catch insects for those nutrients. I think this shold be mentioned in the feeder section. Many people may not know that they eat insects, and some commercial mixes claim that the sugar\water mix is not enough. PrometheusX303 20:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A pic not used

There is a pic I posted belize40.jpg that would be approritate for this page if some one wants to use it Belizian 19:01, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning feeders with bleach?

I'm an avid hummingbird watcher and I've read recently that they don't recommend using bleach, even a weak solution, to clean the feeders. My local bird store told me to use a solution of white vinegar and water to clean the feeders and it works and is much less toxic. I know in nursing, we have patients clean reusable medical devices like nebulizers with white vinegar. Does anyone know about this? If the bleach is left in the article, I think it needs to be emphasized that the solution needs to be a weak solution. maltmomma June 30, 2005 17:11 (UTC)

[edit] How fast?

Hummingbirds are really quite zippy little creatures. But how fast can they fly? Not how fast do they beat their wings, every book I've ever looked up on birds has told be that. But how quickly can they get from point A to point B? Fieari 18:03, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

• According to this page, normal flight about 25mph; up to 65kph (40mph) in a courtship dive. (Google search "hummingbird flight speed" Randyoo 02:08, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Very helpful. Hm. Now, what section would that go best into this article? Fieari 22:04, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

not thisarticle - refers only to Ruby-throated Hummingbird jimfbleak 04:02, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photograph

I just added a photograph of a flying hummingbird (and moved the one that was there up a bit). Can anyone tell me what hummingbird specifically this is? DirkvdM 12:13, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] evolution

How do scientists think hummingbirds evolved? Obviously, in order to subsist on a diet of flowers, it helps to be really small, have a narrow beak, and hover, but why did hummingbirds start eating the nectar in the first place? Do scientists have a theory?

many species of bird will take nectar as part of their diet, and species such as New World warblers migrating to the tropics in winter often increase the amount of readily available fruit and nectar in their diet once the breeding season need for harder to obtain protein has reduced. It then becomes a matter of positive feedback, since adaptions which improve access to nectar will lead to an increasing specialisation on that food source. The completely unrelated sunbirds have followed the same evolutionary route. jimfbleak 17:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I was once told that the reason a hummingbird has such fine control over its flight (being able to fly directly up or backwards) is because it's the only bird that can rotate its wings, having shoulder sockets similar to a human's, and that their legs/feet serve no function except grasping, but I didn't see anything in-depth on their anatomy in the article. Any merit to this? Albino Bebop 22:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hummingbird memory

Thought someone might like to incorporate this research into the wiki article. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11697039/?GT1=7850

[edit] Kolibri

Please see Kolibri article. Is this word in any use in English language? Please update hummingbird and/or kolibri articles correspondingly. mikka (t) 22:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not an English word for hummingbird. jimfbleak 05:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed.--Curtis Clark 19:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Going for a ride

Do Hummingbirds piggy back on other birds when they migrate? DZ dawniezee@bellsouth.net

No jimfbleak 10:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Urban legend?

I heard somewhere that a person was once such an idiot as to put artificial sweetener in a hummingbird feeder (out of a misguided desire to improve the birds' health), and the birds drank the artificial sweetener, which had essentially no calories, and died of starvation with full bellies. Has anyone else heard of this / is this true? Kasreyn 09:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

never heard of this, and sounds implausible, but who knows? jimfbleak 10:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed: MiG-44

"The results of this study were partly used during the development of the 6th generation Russian hovering jetfighter MIG-44."

Removed as it is unsourced and seems unlikely. The study referred to might be useful for a bird-sized UAV, but probably not for a fighter-sized plane, and there does not appear to be a MiG-44, though there is a MiG-MFI Project 1.44. 213.54.17.19, please cite your sources.--QuantumEngineer 21:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed: Uniqueness of backward flying

Removed reference to humming birds being the ONLY birds which can fly backwards in controlled flight. Significant numbers of small birds can fly backwards as well as vertically. Hummingbirds are often quoted as the only birds to be able to do this but it is fallacious. Ref: www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Acadian_Flycatcher_dtl.html

[edit] Other birds resembling hummingbirds

Where the article states that the hummingbirds are a group exclusive to the Americas, it might do to mention the sunbirds of Africa, which strongly resemble hummingbirds but are considered a different group. When I was in Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2001, I saw birds that looked for all the world like hummingbirds--except that I thought I'd read that hummingbirds lived only in the western hemisphere. Our tour guide told me, yes, Africa does have hummingbirds. Only later when I got home and looked it up did I learn that the guide was mistaken, and that I had apparently seen sunbirds. 72.66.100.68 03:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza

Convergent evolution produces the apparent similarity, but they're not even closely related, Jimfbleak.talk.07:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vocalization

There are some references on the internet about the ability of hummingbirds to imitate sounds, but there is no mention thereof in this article. I hope someone can clarify more on the subject, for it seems incomplete and there is no mention on the singing traits of the species whatsoever. 201.81.180.192 00:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Appearance

In the section on appearance, the piece that says "The names that admiring naturalists have given to hummingbirds suggest exquisite, fairylike grace and gemlike brilliance" seems a bit off in tone. I don't think that it really fits in with the appearance of the bird, though it could go in a section about the naming of the birds. Would anyone object to the removal of those two sentences? Hey jude, don't let me down 03:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed it, it's alittle POV, and like you said off tone. If anyone has a good reason why it should be there, please respond here. Latulla 01:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)