Essay on Hummingbirds

The Puerto Rican parrot or "iguaca" (as our Taino Indians called it) is a bright green bird with a red band on the forehead, a white ring around the eye and the blue primary feathers. Juveniles are quite similar to adults. Both females and males are similar and measure about twelve inches.

The Cardinal, also known as the redbird and the Virginia nightingale, is about eight inches long, a little smaller than a robin. They have perching feet to help support them when they are sitting in the trees. Their throat and area around the base of the bill is black and they have a seed eating beak. Cardinals have an elliptical wing because they need to have the capability for quick take-offs and and

Imagine living in a civilization that practiced human sacrifice and ritual dances, and then one day that civilization no longer exists because another culture decided to conquer them. These people are known to modern society as the Aztecs. In Graciela Limon's novel, Song of the Hummingbird, she illustrated how a culture like the Aztecs or Mexica, can quickly diminish when there are people such as the Spanish that have very limited understanding about certain subjects. Some people may say that the Aztecs were slaughtered because the Darwinian principle of natural selection even applies to mankind. This concept was perceptible when the Spaniards marched with horses, advanced technology, and armor. But through this novel,

Monarchs do not have many predators expect for man. The monarch's trick to not being eating it two hold. First, the coloring of the monarch mimics that of a wasp or a bee which makes predators think twice before trying to eat them. Second, the milkweed plant in which the caterpillar eats has toxins which make the wings of the butterfly distasteful to predators. The monarch butterfly drinks nectar while the caterpillar eats the milkweed. The monarch favorite food here in Florida is Asclepias ssp. or milkweed (Wexler, 1994).

Hummingbirds include the smallest birds in the world, but they belong to one of the largest group of birds, the Trochilidae family. These enchanting birds are found in deserts, mountains, and plains, but most live in tropical rainforests. Their name refers to the humming sound made by their tiny, beating wings; each species creates a different humming sound, depending on the speed of its wing beats. In the Caribbean, people call the hummingbird el zunzun. These energetic dynamos have been around for ages; hummingbird fossils found in Germany are said to be more than 30 million years old.

One of its most important characteristics is its beak. The finch adapted to have a thin, long beak to probe through moss, bark and leaves in search of food (Wildscreen Arkive, N.D.). These finches have the thinnest beak out of the 13 finches; which aids them to find small insects. The Green Warbler finch are mostly found in humid highland forest where their primary food source is found. These adaptations made them more fit to survive on available food. Over the years the finch’s beak has evolved as the bird developed different taste for insects. Another famous adaptation is how they camouflage in their environment. The Green Warbler is restricted to the forest and is greener in body colouration, while the Gray Warbler is found in shrubby, dry thickets and is greyer and duller looking (Certhidea olivacea, 2010). Their coloration helps them camouflage in their own environments, and to hide from predators. Recent studies have found that there are in fact two separate species of the Warbler Finch, the Green Warbler Finch and the Grey Warbler Finch, but are considered as a single species (Wildscreen Arkive, N.D.). The Green Warbler finch mainly occupies larger, inner islands, while the Grey Warbler finch inhabits the smaller, outer islands (Green Warbler Finch,

Chickadees feed even when its 20 degrees chirping away happily with their “chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee”. Juncos buddy up with them in the cold too. I can’t help but think that if those small birds who don’t weigh much more some cotton balls can survive the winter, I should be able to stand it also. They’re cheerfulness and energy inspire me on days when all else is cold, sleeping and silent.

South American country of Peru. Weighing in at several ounces of the other hummingbirds in the

In paragraph one, the introduction, Doyle asks readers to imagine a hummingbird, followed by a hummingbird’s heart. This is where the author introduces logos about hummingbirds. While a hummingbird lives fast-paced live, the bird is unable to keep up, resulting in pain and shortening the bird’s life. Hummingbirds “visit a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backwards”

Bryan Doyle starts off by throwing information to the reader about the hummingbird and its “pencil eraser of a heart.” He goes off explaining it’s many talents such as “they can fly backward,” or “they can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest.” Doyle uses these facts to engage the reader and to allow them to think about their talents and what they are able to do. The author then cuts the hummingbird by saying that “the price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they

Keeping a hummingbird feeder is a good idea, but there are other things you need to do to keep the little birds happy and humming in your garden. Hummingbirds, unlike most other animals, do not find their food source based on smell. Because of this, brightly colored plants and feeders are what attract the tiny creatures to your garden. Red is the best color to attract them. Keeping a clean, full feeder provides hummingbirds with the energy they need to keep flying around your garden and to other stops on their feeding route. The sugar water solution, however, is not their main food source. Hummingbirds actually get the nutrients and proteins they need for survival from soft-bodied spiders and tiny insects on the plants in your garden. Their outrageous metabolisms burn up calories so quickly, they need the sugar and flower nectars to keep them energized so they can hunt. The traditional sugar/water solution calls for one part sugar to four parts water. Do not boil the water to make syrup. Just mix it in room temperature water. Some gardeners have experimented with solutions that have a higher concentration of sugar to water. There is no research to show that high concentrated solutions of sugar harms the hummingbirds. Their metabolism operates so much differently than most animals. A higher concentration of solution just means they can drink less often to get the energy they need to hunt. It

They don't need speed though because their prey can't hear them coming.They can fly without making a sound. Barn owls have soft fringes on the leading edges of their wing feathers. Scientists believe this causes silent flight. Their bones arre very light. This is great for the barn owl because when it flys it doesn't have a lot of weight to carry around. The barn owl only weighs just below or above a pound. Their bones are of air pockets and crossbraced with solid shafts to make them strong. Their are bigger than their body so they can carry both bird and prey together. (Below is a skeleton of a barn

Short beaked finches have less food source because they can’t open hard seeds. Because of that they die off from starvation. Birds with small beaks couldn’t open the hard seeds so they had no food source and struggled to find food they could eat. For evidence of the finches not being able to eat see figure 3.

Although the Hummingbird is seen as a charm it seems to mirror her infamously shaped eyebrows.

There are almost as many ways of flying as there are kinds of birds. Albatrosses glide and soar with long narrow wings stretched out, sometimes staying aloft for hours without a single wing beat. Hummingbirds, on the other hand, can 't rest their wings for even a second in flight. Woodpeckers have a swooping flight, crows fly in a straight line, and swallows dart and weave every which way.