Everyone knows of male hummingbirds and their dazzling iridescent hues. But the females wow us in a more practical way: They are among the best mothers in the bird world. Male hummingbirds take no part in raising the young, so these miniature moms do the big job all by themselves.
A Perfect Cradle
To shelter her cherished eggs, a female hummingbird builds an exquisite nest that is equally as precious as it is practical. She fashions a tiny cup from the finest plant materials, like the wispy down from dandelions or thistles, and places it on top of a branch, tying them together with sticky spiderwebs. She covers the outside of the nest with tiny flakes of lichen to camouflage her masterpiece.
The build time is anywhere from a week to 10 days, and the resulting nest looks like a bump on a branch— almost impossible to spot.
Egg-cellent Care
This story is from the June/July 2020 edition of Birds & Blooms.
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This story is from the June/July 2020 edition of Birds & Blooms.
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Sense or Nonsense? - Why some birds can taste and smell - but others can't
Does a porcelain berry taste like a blueberry to a gray catbird? Does a block of lard smell like frying bacon to a northern flicker? The short answer is no. While some avian species do have a well-adapted sense of taste or smell, they can't distinguish between flavors and odors the way humans can. They're not picking up every ingredient in the suet you put out, says José Ramírez-Garofalo, an ornithology researcher at Rutgers University in New Jersey and the director of Freshkills Biological Station in Staten Island, New York.
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Even if you haven't heard of Canada jays, you've heard of their relatives. Members of the corvid family, they belong to the same group as American crows, blackbilled magpies, and jays including blue, Steller's and scrub. "Unlike many of the other jays, a Canada jay doesn't have a crest of any kind; it just has a rounded head," says Dale Gentry, director of conservation for Audubon Upper Mississippi River.In 2018, the Canada jay's name was changed from gray jay, but Dale thinks the former adjective was fitting. "Most of its body is shades of gray with some white," he says. "There are different subspecies that have different physical traits, but most of them have some lighter coloring on their foreheads, upper breasts and throats, each with a darker streak that starts at each eye and goes back."
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