Amazing Birds
The Red-billed Long-tailed Hummingbird, also known as the Doctor Bird, is unique to Jamaica.
While most scholars agree that they are separate species, some believe they are the same species as the black-billed long-tailed hummingbird. They are the national bird of Jamaica.
The red-billed long-tailed hummingbird uses its long tongue to eat nectar and its wings to catch small insects. The male's rudder feathers are 15-18 cm long, longer than the body. The rudder feathers hum when flying. The female does not have these rudder feathers and has a predominantly white underbody.
Hummingbirds are the smallest birds in the world. All hummingbird species are listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The hummingbird represents the "sun god" in Aztec mythology of the American Indian people. Huzropichiri, is a symbol of bravery, tenacity, and the courage to fight against fate. He brought fire into the world, bringing happiness and hope to mankind.
Hummingbirds have scaly, iridescent feathers of red, orange, blue, and green that shine with a metallic sheen. They sing along, like a song. Flying backwards is a trick that only hummingbirds can do; they are the only birds that can fly back and forth and hover.
So why do hummingbirds stay still while they forage for nectar? After many hummingbird flight-test analyses, and with the help of high-speed cameras, scientists measured that the bird's wings beat about 80 times per second.
For people, 80 times a second is how to see clearly, compared to the human eye generally about 24 times a second, which can see the picture as a moving video. A hummingbird whips 80 times a second, which is about 50 kilometres an hour, similar to our human speed.
Hummingbirds rely on nectar as their main food source, their wings flutter rapidly, their thin, slender beak helps them to draw nectar from flowers, and the only bird in the world that can fly backwards is also crucial for pollination.
How does a hummingbird get nectar with its long beak? Some people think that hummingbirds have special tongues that can branch off and get sucked into flowers. They use their tongues to extract nectar from the flowers and get food.
Others believe that the hummingbird's tongue acts like a small water pump by which it sucks nectar from flowers.
Many plants need the help of animals such as bees, birds, or bats to transfer pollen from plant to plant and reproduce. At the same time, plants tend to be adaptable, accepting only certain animals to collect and distribute their pollen. The study found that the seed germination rate of plants pollinated by hummingbirds was higher than that of plants pollinated by bees.
Hummingbirds improve the reproductive success of plants because they travel long distances to collect pollen. Rather than feeding from the flowers of individual plants, hummingbirds prefer to visit different plants, which increases the chances of cross-pollination.