Saturday, 17 November 2012

Noisy Flights


Why is the humming bird called so?

It is because of the humming sound it makes while flying.

Have you ever tried running and singing at the same time? It would be impossible wouldn’t it? You would start panting within no time! Then how does the humming bird manage this?

The secret is that the sound made by this bird during the flight is not vocal at all. It is caused by the rapid beating of its little wings, just like bees and dragon flies. This little bird beats its wings around 60 to 80 times a second!

In fact, the sounds made by the feathers of this bird are not restricted to humming alone. The elaborate courtship displays of humming birds comprise of a bomb dive from a great height. The dive is accompanied by a loud chirp. But this chirp again, is not vocal. During the dive, the bird spreads out its tail feathers, just for 60 milliseconds. The feathers vibrate for this brief period and the air passing across them gives the chirp that attracts the female’s attention.

Humming birds are the smallest vertebrates, the smallest hummingbird, the Bee Hummingbird being no more than 2.25 inches long. These creatures can hover at one place in air for a long period of time. They are capable of flying forwards, backwards, upwards and downwards, an incredible feat that no other bird is capable of! This is possible because they have wings that rotate through 180o. Unlike most birds that flap their wings back and forth to fly, hummingbirds move their wings in the shape of an eight, so that they can move in any direction. They have strong pectoral muscles that make this possible.

Hummingbirds are mainly found in the American continents. The feed on nectar from flowers, from where they get their sugars. For proteins, they feed on insects.



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