Ruby-throated Hummingbird
By, Nicole Jurek
Habitat
These birds usually live in places like gardens, parks, grasslands, meadows, forest edges and even backyards.
Color Patterns
Ruby- throated hummingbirds have magnificent colors, they are bright emerald or a gold green. This coloration is normally on their back and crown with white on their stomach. The males have the ruby throats.
Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Males include the ruby throat, this throat is very bright but dark in no light. Usually weigh about 3.4 g.
Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Females generally have a green back like the male and a white patch behind their eye, they have a white stomach like the male, but no ruby colored throat. Females are usually bigger than the males and have a longer beak. Normally weighs about 3.8 g.
Chick Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Look similar to an adult female Ruby- throated Hummingbird. The males tend to inhabit their red throats sometime in August and September.
Behaviors
Ruby- throated Hummingbirds are extremely quick and agile and have the ability to stop whenever they need to and hover. These birds also have the ability to eat insects out of the air and out of spider webs. These small birds can make chirping noises throughout the day which occasionally happens between individual birds or when they are chasing one another.
Adaptations
To stay alive these birds need to be able to eat, with their long, skinny beak they can easily eat nectar out of any flower. They also have a flexible lower beak, this adaptation allows them to easily catch bugs in mid-air. These birds also have a muscle fiber in their pectoral muscle that allow them to keep moving throughout the day due to the fact that their wing speed can be 50 beats per second. The final adaptation that is important is something called "Torpor," this lets the Hummingbirds go into a sort of deep sleep where it cools them down due to the fact they have such high body temperature from always moving.