Hummingbirds

family of birds

Hummingbirds are New World birds that constitute the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in) range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm bee hummingbird weighing less than a U.S. penny (2.5 g).


Across the downs a hummingbird
Came dipping through the bowers,
He pivoted on emptiness
To scrutinize the flowers.

They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound created by their beating wings which flap at high frequencies audible to humans. They hover in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rates, typically around 50 times per second, allowing them also to fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph), backwards.

Quotes

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  • In my backyard in north Texas
    On the hottest summer night
    Hummingbirds fall all around us
    Their hearts stopped beating in mid-flight.
  • Across the downs a hummingbird
    Came dipping through the bowers,
    He pivoted on emptiness
    To scrutinize the flowers.
    • Nathalia Crane, "The First Reformer", Lava Lane and Other Poems (1925).
  • The male is colored much more gorgeously than the female so that he can be shot and made into feather embroidery.
    • Will Cuppy, "The Hummingbird", How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931).
  • [Footnote:] Much still remains to be learned about his sex life because the Hummingbird is quicker than the eye.
    • Will Cuppy, "The Hummingbird", How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931).
  • The restless activity and general appearance of the Humming-bird make one almost hesitate to believe that it is really a bird and not a brilliant tropical insect. It possesses no song; few people see it except on the wing, and its nest is so rarely found that to most people the bird is merely a sudden apparition, seen hovering over a flower, its ruby throat sparkling in the sun. When the Humming-bird's nest is discovered, it turns out to be a structure as delicate and rare as its little architect. It is often fixed on a lichen-covered twig, frequently in orchards, but as often on tall forest trees. To the outside of the nest, bits of gray lichen are fastened, so that at a distance the nest is mistaken for a knob of the twig itself. The eggs are always two, ridiculously small, like pea beans.
  • My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—equal seekers of sweetness.
  • Hummingbirds, like all Neotropical migrants, don't recognize any borders, boundaries, or countries; they consider all of the Americas their home, nesting in the northern part of their range and wintering in the southern part.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 381.
  • Jewelled coryphée
    With quivering wings like shielding gauze outspread.
  • Quick as a humming bird is my love,
    Dipping into the hearts of flowers—
    She darts so eagerly, swiftly, sweetly
    Dipping into the flowers of my heart.
  • And the humming-bird that hung
    Like a jewel up among
    The tilted honeysuckle horns
    They mesmerized and swung
    In the palpitating air,
    Drowsed with odors strange and rare,
    And, with whispered laughter, slipped away
    And left him hanging there.
  • A flash of harmless lightning,
    A mist of rainbow dyes,
    The burnished sunbeams brightening
    From flower to flower he flies.
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