Hummingbird Facts

Hummingbird Facts

Hummingbirds are the tiniest birds in North America. The average Ruby-throated hummingbird weighs about 3 grams and typically eats its weight in nectar each day.

When perched, a Ruby-throated hummingbird is about 3 inches (7.5 cm) long from bill tip to tail tip. The bill makes up about one-fifth of a hummer's length.

Hummingbirds live about four years. To date, the oldest known Ruby-throated Hummingbird lived 9 years and 1 month.

Hummingbirds can hover or fly up, down, forward and backward!

A hummingbird's wings beat 60-80 times per second in normal flight, and up to 200 times per second in courtship dives. The stiffness of flight feathers makes a humming sound when the wings beat fast enough.

Baby hummingbirds can't fly. These tiny birds are full grown when they leave the nest.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are the most widely distributed of the world's 339 species of hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds occur ONLY in the Western Hemisphere.

Also see Hummingbird Facts

Image: Don Severson

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Archilochus colubris

Classification:
Animal kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Apodiformes
Family: Trochilidae
Genus: Archilochus
Species: colubris