Hummingbirds

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

• In my backyard in north Texas
  On the hottest summer night
  Hummingbirds fall all around us
  Their hearts stopped beating in mid-flight.
  • Arcade Fire, "Asleep At The Wheel", B-Sides.

• 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.
  • Ralph Hoffmann, "The Ruby-throated Humming-bird". Bird Portraits. Ginn. 1901. pp. 23–24.  (quote from p. 23; 40 pages; bird portraits by Ernest Thompson Seton, descriptive text by Ralph Hoffmann)

• My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—equal seekers of sweetness.
  • Mary Oliver, "Messenger", Thirst (2006).

• 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.
  • Robert Sargent, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (1999), Chapter 1, (ISBN 0-8117-2688-6), p. 4

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 381.

• Jewelled coryphée
  With quivering wings like shielding gauze outspread.
  • Ednah Proctor Clarke, Humming-Bird.

• 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.
  • James Oppenheim, Quick as a Humming Bird.

• 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.
  • James Whitcomb Riley, The South Wind and the Sun.

• A flash of harmless lightning,
  A mist of rainbow dyes,
  The burnished sunbeams brightening
  From flower to flower he flies.
  • John Banister Tabb, Humming Bird.