Hummingbirds

BLACK-CHINNED HUMMINGBIRD

Males have all-black heads, but when the sun hits their throat, a beautiful, bright purple stripe flashes underneath!
Females use spiderwebs and soft plant fuzz to build their nests. The spiderwebs let the nest stretch bigger as the babies grow!
These birds beat their wings about 50 times every single second, creating a quiet humming sound as they zoom through the air.
Their super long, split tongue licks nectar at an incredible rate of 13 to 17 licks per second!

To keep their eggs safe from big birds, moms cover the outside of their tiny nests with dead leaves and bud scales so they look just like a tree branch.
They eat bugs for breakfast. Nectar gives them energy, but they also snatch tiny flies, ants, and spiders right out of the air to get strong and healthy.
Even though they are lighter than a nickel, they fly thousands of miles every single autumn to spend the cold winter in sunny New Mexico.

As they zip through the air, their wings make a loud, metallic ringing sound that sounds like a tiny cricket or whistle.

Male broad-tailed hummingbirds have a patch of bright, iridescent rose-magenta feathers under their chin that flashes like a pink jewel in the sun.

Unlike many tiny animals, they love high elevations and fly right up into the cool New Mexico mountain forests to build their nests.

Mountain nights get cold. To stay alive, these birds enter a deep sleep called torpor, slowing their heartbeat and dropping their body temperature to match the chilly air.

To impress females, the males fly up to 100 feet straight into the sky and then zoom down in a massive, high-speed dive.

Because they are so active, they need to keep moving and eat sweet nectar or tiny bugs about every 15 minutes!

The memory of a broad-tailed hummingbird is so impressive that they can remember every single flower and backyard sugar-water feeder from the year before.

Mama broad-tailed hummingbirds are excellent builders. They will fly back to the same tree year after year, sometimes building a brand-new nest right on top of their old one.

The word “rufous” means a reddish-brown color, and males look just like a bright, copper coin zooming through the air.

When the sun hits the males’ throat, their feathers flash a brilliant, glowing orange-red color that looks like real fire.

These tiny birds are known for being some of the most aggressive hummingbirds in North America, often defending their favorite flowers from much larger birds.

These birds make one of the longest migrations of any bird their size, flying all the way from Alaska down through New Mexico to Mexico!

In the spring, they fly up the Pacific Coast, but when they travel south in the summer, they use the New Mexico mountains as their highway.

They are naturally drawn to the color red and will zoom right up to check out red shirts, red hats, or red backyard feeders.

When they are busy flying, their tiny hearts can beat over 1,200 times every single minute to give them super-speed energy.

Even though they fly thousands of miles over high mountains and hot deserts, one Rufous hummingbird weighs less than a single coin in your pocket

High Desert Helpers is sponsored through the Trails+ Grant Program by the New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division.