Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air

I watched this Nature documentary for the third time on Wednesday. I plan to use the hummingbird as a metaphor for myself and my search for the truth about my grandmother, so this time I took notes. I also did a three-day training last week in order to make my courses writing intensive; we were encouraged to develop a theme for each class and I’ve decided that my course on black masculinity will now focus on the evolution of black male identity. Sometimes I think I may have missed my calling as a scientist. I used to make “potions” when I was a kid, recklessly blending whatever products I could find under the bathroom sink. I think science stopped being fun in high school—suddenly we were dissecting baby pigs and having to memorize the periodic table. I stuck with environmental science but everything else fell by the wayside. The Hummingbird’s Tongue is an experimental memoir and I plan to include some scientific data about these fascinating birds. Here are some facts about hummingbirds that will amaze you:

• they are the smallest of all warm-blooded creatures
• they can hover like insects, which enables them to fly backwards
• 8000 plant species rely upon hummingbirds for pollination
• they can live at high altitudes (12000ft) where no other birds can survive
• the species we see in the northeast migrate from Panama and Costa Rica, a round trip journey of 6000 miles
• hummingbirds cross the Gulf of Mexico—500 miles of water—in 18 hours
• insects comprise one quarter of a hummingbird’s diet
• they eat half their body weight in nectar every day, which means they feed at 1000 flowers between dawn and dusk
• they have a heart rate of 600bpm when they’re at rest; it’s double that when they’re flying
• their wings beats 200x/second
• at night they go into a state of torpor, lowering their heart rate to 36bpm which cuts their body temperature in half
• there are 350 species of hummingbird and most are endangered