Behavior
Ruby-throated hummingbirds are solitary. Adults of this species are not social, other than during courtship (which lasts a few minutes), and when a female cares for her offspring. Both males and females of any age are aggressive towards other hummingbirds. They may defend territories, such as a feeding territory, attacking and chasing other hummingbirds that enter. In late summer to early fall they fatten up for migration. This is important because, as part of their migration, they must fly across the Gulf of Mexico. This feat is impressive, as a 500-mile, non-stop flight over water would seemingly require a caloric energy that far exceeds an adult hummingbird's body weight of 3 grams. However, researchers discovered the tiny birds can increase their body mass up to double with lean mass in preparation for their Gulf crossing. The additional mass, stored as fat, provides enough energy for the birds to achieve the flight.
They feed frequently while active during the day and when temperatures drop, particularly on cold nights, they may conserve energy by entering hypothermic torpor.
Due to their small size, they are vulnerable to insect-eating birds and animals.
Read more about this topic: Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“To a first approximation, the intentional strategy consists of treating the object whose behavior you want to predict as a rational agent with beliefs and desires and other mental states exhibiting what Brentano and others call intentionality.”
—Daniel Clement Dennett (b. 1942)
“One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)