Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds, known locally as tucusitos, colibríes or picaflores are autochthonous and exclusive birds of tropical America. They constitute the family Trochiliidae, a group of very small birds, of sharp and long bills that fly with an astonishingly fast wing beat, sip the nectar from flowers and catch small insects on the flight.

A hummingbird is a tiny machine, specialized in the conversion of energy into fast wing movement. In order to fly, they move their wings seventy or more times per second. To accomplish this, they eat most of the time while they are active. In order to get their food they repeatedly fly through air transects from one flower to another.

During the nights they rest under a torpor state, during which their metabolism decreases considerably. This allows them to save some of energy to wake up the following day and to begin to move again and look for its food.

Their ecological importance as reproductive agents for flowering plants in the tropical forests is notorious. These little birds visit the colorful flowers and, while they drink their nectar, pollen sticks to their bills and then transfer it to other flowers of the same species, helping the plants in their reproduction.