Hummingbird Facts: History, Habitats and Habits

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Commercial hummingbird feeders range from inexpensive plastic models to more costly handmade stoneware feeders. Or you can make your own from a small, clean glass or plastic container with a tight lid.
Commercial hummingbird feeders range from inexpensive plastic models to more costly handmade stoneware feeders. Or you can make your own from a small, clean glass or plastic container with a tight lid.
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Rufous hummingbird.
Rufous hummingbird.
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Lots of good things come in small packages.
Lots of good things come in small packages.
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Broad-billed hummingbird
Broad-billed hummingbird
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Calliope hummingbird.
Calliope hummingbird.
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Black-chinned hummingbird.
Black-chinned hummingbird.
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Broad-tailed hummingbird.
Broad-tailed hummingbird.
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Anna's hummingbird.
Anna's hummingbird.
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Ruby-throated hummingbird.
Ruby-throated hummingbird.

A close look at the history, habitat and habits of the North American hummingbird, including hummingbird facts such as feeding and gardening for hummingbirds. (See the hummingbird photos and homemade feeder photo in the image gallery.)

Hummingbird Facts: History, Habitats and Habits

Back in the days when I could get away with such things, I spent a summer thumbing my way across the country, stopping and camping wherever the mood (or exhaustion) struck. My meanderings eventually led me onto the hiking trails transversing Kentucky’s magnificent Daniel Boone National Forest.

I had just settled back against a tree, munching the last of the blackberries I’d picked that morning and basking in the hot July sun, when a dark blur accompanied by an odd, soft whrrrrrr sound flashed a few feet in front of my face and stopped abruptly just to my left. I froze in midbite. Out of the corner of my eye, just barely within the farthest stretch of my peripheral vision, I could see a tiny, dusky-green bird, delicate as a whisper, perched on a branch no more than six inches from my ear.

I had never seen a hummingbird at rest before, to say nothing of one that close. Assuming that it was unaware of my presence, I sat motionless, hardly breathing, straining my eye sideways to watch the miniature creature as it sat on the twig, its tiny body lightly pumping up and down as though pulsating. Suddenly it was gone; with a whir it flashed to my right, zipped upward a few feet, whizzed down, hovered a moment at a honeysuckle blossom, then buzzed back to my left again, this time alighting on a branch almost directly in front of me, about two feet away. Catching the sun, the tiny body flashed brilliant green and red. The little bird cocked its head and looked me square in the eye, as if to say, “There. Now do you see me?”

  • Published on Jul 1, 1988
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