Today I cleaned up my flowers in my yard, cut back my knock out roses and generally cleaned up the plants that have died for the winter. I washed and packed up y hummingbird feeder several weeks ago. They seem to leave around the first week or so of October. I love this time of year but I realize I look forward to flowers and everything turning green again and the hummingbirds returning.
I read that 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. Their heart rate can reach as high as 1,260 beats per minute and they have a breathing rate of 2560 breaths per minute, even at rest. During flight, oxygen consumption per gram of muscle tissue in a hummingbird is about 10 times higher than that seen for elite human athletes.
They have the highest metabolism of any homeothermic animal. To conserve energy when food is scarce and nightly when not foraging, they go into torpor, a state similar to hibernation showing metabolic rate to 1/15th of its normal rate.
This is a 6" x 6" on gallery wrapped canvas.
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