Fun Humming Bird Fact

Since I'm giving away a humming bird feeder I figured I'd let you in on some humming bird facts.

1.  Hummingbird are the smallest bird and also the smallest of all animals that have a backbone.

2.  Hummingbirds have no sense of smell

3.  Hummingbirds can rotate their wings in a circle which makes them they the only birds that can fly forwards, backwards, up, down ,sideways and  hover in mid air.

4.  To conserve energy while they sleep or when food is scarce, they can go into a hibernation-like state (torpor) where their metabolic rate is slowed to !/15th of its normal rate.

5.  During migration, some hummingbirds make a non-stop 500 mile flight over the Gulf of Mexico.

6.  During courtship dives a hummingbird can reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour and can average speeds of 20 to 30 miles per hour.

7.  Hummingbirds are the second largest family of birds with 343 species.

8.  Hummingbirds can beat their wings up to 80 times a second during normal flight and up to 200 times per second during a courtship dive.

9.  Hummingbirds have a heart rate that can reach up to 1,260 beats per minute.

10.  Percentage wise, the hummingbird has the largest brain of all birds (4.2% of its total body weight).

11.  Hummingbirds have very weak feet and use them mainly just for perching.