hummingbird

a kind of bird – related to swifts – small with (males) brightly coloured feathers;

a long beak & a longer tongue

long and straight or very slightly curved beaks (bills) with relatively long tongue; short weak legs with relatively long claws; excellent wings; feeds on nectar of the flowers and small insects; size: the smallest- Cuban (?) bee hummingbird — 2½ inches long and weight: 2 grams, and the largest, giant hummingbird – 8-9 inches long and weight: 24 grams; lives for 3-4 years; about 340 species, native to the Americas – mostly in South America

male ~~  cock

female ~~ hen

baby ~~ chick

group ~~ charm, drum, hover, troubling

voice (call) ~~ {vocal – nil}; hum (sound from the beating of the wings while flying)

home ~~ nest (for egg laying and chick raising)

Special Features:

The hummingbird is given its onomatopoeic name for the ‘humming’ sound the wings make while flying.

3 hummingbirds on a person’s hand

The ‘bee hummingbird’ is the smallest of all the birds in the world – less than 2 inches long and weighing only 1.8 grams – only a little bigger than a large bee!

And the ‘giant hummingbird’ is the largest of all the hummingbirds – 8½ inches long and weighing 24 grams!

Hummingbirds can see the colours of flowers that other nectar feeding birds cannot!

Hummingbirds can hover over the flowers they feed on – stay in air, like a helicopter, which feature is found in few other nectar feeding birds also; but the most amazing ability only these birds have is the ability to fly backwards!!

By feeding on nectar of the flowers, hummingbirds help in pollination of several plants.

Hummingbirds have been mentioned in the religious scriptures of the South American cultures.

Some kinds of humming birds are called ‘coquette‘ which also means ‘a woman who behaves in a sensuous way with men in order get some favours or money’. Some of the ‘coquettes’ are: spangled coquette, black-crested coquette, tufted coquette, and so on.

hover like a helicopter

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