Hummingbird: One Tiny Creature

This photo was taken from http://wildbirdsupplies.net/hummingbird-feeders/



I believe at least some of us common folks have seen those adorable birds before, at least for me, I remember that I saw a hummingbird once before when I was little. It was indeed very TINY!! It was about the size of my thumb and its wings were flapping so fast that is was a blur. It was also moving around between flowers and bushes gathering nectar, which is a sweet liquid produced from flower.

It was later on that I pleasantly learned that hummingbirds' size is from 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in, which means their size really is roughly the same size of our thumbs! Of course, there's another hummingbird which is smaller, all of that 5 cm and goes by the species "The Bee Hummingbird".

Of course, the "humming" part of the bird's name was not a bluff either! The reason why it's called the "Hummingbird" is because of the flapping sound of their wings, the wing action is so fast that it hums, it can go up to 12-19 times per second and can fly up to 54 km/h! Imagine that!

With that fast metabolism and flying motion going on, we might think that those birds live a short live, which is, again to my amazement, not exactly true! Although many of the young chicks don't survive the first year, especially between hatching and leaving the nest, which called fledging, but for those that survived can live up to more than decade! Of course, different types tend to have different life spam, like the better known North American hummingbirds live up to only 3 to 5 years. But most live longer than that.