Hummingbird Facts
Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife
Hummingbirds are small, colorful and fast. Mark Klym, Hummingbird Roundup coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife, offers additional interesting tidbits about this bird.
Most hummingbirds, their wing speed, at about 70 to 72 beats per second. And people just can’t imagine that –moving your arms at 72 times a second [admit it, you flapped your arms]. They can also hover. They can fly backward, which not many birds can do. Once they find a feeder they are very aggressive at keeping other birds out. And mostly during migration season. And the reason for that is if you just walked 25-hundred miles you’d be very protective of your food source, too.
Being a fast flyer does not keep this creature out of harm’s way. Klym says it is interesting to note that the biggest threats to hummingbirds include clean windows and cats…but the threats do not stop there.
Hummingbirds have a lot of other predators. Praying mantis – people don’t think of them as a threat to a hummingbird but they will certainly take a hummingbird. Spiders will take a hummingbird. Snakes, roadrunners, wrens…there’s a number of species that will take a hummingbird. Of course, other than your front window and the cats, most of them, the hummingbirds have evolved around and so they will usually escape.
We have links to more information about hummingbirds on our website. Visit us at: passorttotexas.org.
That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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