Canku Ota - A Newsletter Celebrating Native America July 1, 2000 - Issue 13

American Indians and Hummers
by Vicki from various sources

A Mayan legend says the hummingbird is actually the sun in disguise, and he is trying to court a beautiful woman, who is the moon. Another Mayan legend says the first two hummingbirds were created from the small feather scraps left over from the construction of other birds. The god who made the hummers was so pleased he had an elaborate wedding ceremony for them. First butterflies marked out a room, then flower petals fell on the ground to make a carpet; spiders spun webs to make a bridal pathway, then the sun sent down rays which caused the tiny groom to glow with dazzling reds and greens. The wedding guests noticed that whenever he turned away from the sun, he became drab again like the original gray feathers from which he was made. In a Navajo legend a hummer was sent up to see what is above the blue sky. It turns out to be absolutely nothing. In a Cherokee story, a medicine man turned himself into a hummingbird to retrieve lost tobacco plants. In another Cherokee story, a woman is courted by both a hummingbird and a crane. She first chooses the hummingbird for his good looks, but the crane convinces here that there should be a race around the world with the winner having her hand in marriage. She agrees, thinking the hummingbird is bound to win because he flies so fast. What she fails to take into account is that Crane can fly all night long, while Hummingbird is able to fly only during the day. Crane wins, but she reneges on her promise, because he is so ugly. The Creek Indians have a similar story. In this version Crane wins because he flies in a straight line, while Hummingbird zigzags. Hopi and Zuni legends tell of hummingbirds intervening on behalf of humans, convincing the gods to bring rain. Because of this, people from these tribes often paint hummingbirds on water jars. The Hopi kachina for Hummingbird depicts him with green moccasins and a green mask. He has an aqua body, and he is yellow on top of the head. He is crowned with a ruff made of Douglas fir. One of the Hopi stories is about a time of famine when a young boy and girl were left alone while their parents were searching for food. After the boy made a toy hummingbird, his sister threw it into the air. It came to life and began to provide for them by bringing an ear of corn every day. Eventually, the hummingbird flew to the center of the earth where it pleaded with the god of fertility to restore the land. Rain and green vegetation came, then the children's parents returned. In a Pima legend a hummingbird acted like Noah's dove, bringing back a flower as proof the great flood was subsiding. There is a legend from Mexico about a Taroscan Indian woman who was taught how to weave beautiful baskets by a grateful hummingbird to whom she had given sugar water during a drought. These baskets are now used in Day of the Dead Festivals. An Apache legend tells of Wind Dancer, a young warrior, who was born deaf, but could sing magical, wordless songs that brought healing and good weather. He married Bright Rain, a beautiful, young woman whom he rescued when she was being attacked by a wolf. Wind Dancer was killed during another errand of mercy. A bitter, death-bring winter ensued, but it suddenly and mysteriously ended after Bright Rain started taking solitary walks. Tribal elders learned Wind Dancer had come back to her in the form of a hummingbird. He wore the same ceremonial costume and war paint he had worn as a man. In fields of spring flowers he would approach her and whisper his magical secrets in her ear. This brought her peace and joy. The Pueblo Indians have hummingbird dances and use hummingbird feathers in rituals to bring rain. Pueblo shamans use hummingbirds as couriers to send gifts to the Great Mother who lives beneath the earth. To many of the Pueblo the hummingbird is a tobacco bird. In one myth Hummingbird gets smoke from Caterpillar, the guardian of the tobacco plant. Hummingbird brings smoke to the shamans so they can purify the earth. One Pueblo story tells of a demon who is blinded after losing a bet with the sun. In anger he spews out hot lava. The earth catches fire. A hummingbird then saves the beautiful land of people and animals by gathering clouds from the four directions. Hummingbird uses rain from these clouds to put out the flames. This legend says the bright colors on a hummingbird's throat came after he fled through the rainbow in search of rain clouds. Print and color your own hummingbird picture: Hummer

Meet the Hummer family that visits us!! Photos by Paul
We call this one "Woodstock"	She's "Snoopy"
and last, but not least ... meet the "Red Baron"

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is the most common and widely distributed of the hummingbirds in North America. Its minute size, temperament, and behaviour are fascinating, and its skillful flight and migration are amazing. All these things set it apart among birds. Appearance From the tip of its bill to the tip of its tail the ruby-throat measures from 7.5 cm to slightly more than 9 cm. No larger than a good-sized insect, it is often confused with the northern hawk moth, especially at dusk, as the moth is similar in size, form, and flight. The male ruby-throat is shiny metallic green above and greyish white below and has a forked tail. He wears on his throat a splendid gorget of silky, ruby red feathers, which, depending on how the light strikes it, looks sometimes orange, sometimes jet black. The female is similar but has a greyish white throat patch. Her tail is rounded, and some of the outer tail feathers are marked with white spots. These she often displays when posturing and in flight. The ruby-throat's bill is long, straight, and almost as slender as a darning needle. Flight The most remarkable feature about the hummingbird is its flight. It manoeuvres at incredible speed, rapidly changing direction in the air and darting away like a tiny green arrow. Unlike other birds, it can hover in place in the air. Its pointed wings appear to be a blur in flight. Scientists have been able to establish the rate of the wingbeats, by means of high speed photography, at about 55 to 75 beats a second. The rapid wing motion produces a distinct hum, hence the bird's name, rising and falling according to the wing speed. At great accelerations the hum sometimes turns into a continuous high note, similar to that produced by arrows or bullets in flight. Migration In earlier times people did not believe that a bird so small and fragile could fly thousands of kilometres from its breeding range to its wintering grounds. This gave rise to the legend that the tiny birds travelled as passengers on bigger birds, such as the Canada Goose. Now we know that ruby-throats fly south in the fall and north in the spring. Observers have seen spectacular flights of these tiny birds flashing by overhead in great numbers at such places as Point Pelee and Port Stanley on the Great Lakes, especially in the fall. It has also been established that hummingbirds actually cross the 800 km expanse of the Gulf of Mexico on their way to and from their wintering grounds in Central America. The ruby-throats leave their northern breeding grounds during the second half of August and the first week of September. The males migrate first, followed by the females and the juveniles. They return in the same order in spring, during the last two weeks of May. Banded birds have returned to the very same place the next spring. Behaviour When the male hummingbird arrives in the spring, he establishes a territory containing several sources of food. Because these sources of food are of great importance, the area may be shared by other males as well as females. Both the males and the females aggressively defend their food supply and its surroundings against intruders. These encounters lead to persistent swift pursuits that sometimes develop into fighting. The tiny bird uses speed and the hum of its wings to intimidate intruders. It employs certain flight patterns in these aggressive displays. In one, the bird makes a speedy dash, describing a horizontal U, from side to side around the intruder's ears. In another, the bird swings vertically up and down like a pendulum. Both flight patterns are accompanied by high squeaky notes, and the bird's wings hum like an angry bumblebee. The ruby-throat is persistent and continues to worry the intruder until it has had enough and flees. A spectacular feature of the ruby-throat's courtship behaviour is the male's famous pendulum display, an elaboration of the aggresive flight display. The male dives down towards the resting or feeding female. Like a pendulum he sweeps past her and up to a point 2– 3 m in the air, then back along the same path in reverse. He repeats this swinging display time and again, all the while uttering squeaky notes. As he dives past the female his wings hum the loudest; as he swings closer to the female his hum becomes more intense and his speed increases. Abruptly, the display ends; both dart off together, to start again elsewhere. After the pair has mated, the male takes no part in raising the young. He spends his time darting from flower to flower sipping nectar, or sitting for hours atop a selected lookout watching for small insects. Food and feeding The ruby-throat's principal food consists of small insects and the nectar of flowers. The insects are caught on the wing from lookout perches or in and around the flowers. To lap up the honey, the bird inserts its long extensible tubular tongue deep into the honey wells of the flower, preferring tubed flowers, such as bee balm and columbines. When feeding from a larger flower with a very deep honey well, such as a tiger lily, it pierces the calyx, or neck, with its bill and by this shortcut extracts the drop of honey. Bright-coloured flowers that contrast sharply with the background attract the hummingbird. It favours red flowers, followed by orange, which show up well in dark shady places, and visits green flowers only when the background foliage is another colour. The hummingbird, like the bee, contributes to cross-pollination. As it visits one flower it is dusted with pollen, which it carries to another flower of the same species. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker borings that release the sap of trees are also important food sources. The ruby-throat is often seen gently buzzing a sapsucker in the expectation of being led to another food source. Hummingbirds are easily attracted to feeders containing a solution of one part sugar to four parts water. This should be boiled to forestall fermentation, and the mixture should be changed at least once a week. The hummingbird is a curious creature. Some birds take to a feeder at once; others learn to associate the strange contraption with sweet food only with difficulty, and a dash of red or orange paint applied to a new feeder helps. But once a feeder is found, neither its form nor its colour is of any account, as long as it is hanging in the same place. A hummingbird returning in spring always looks for the feeder where it last fed from it eight months before. The hummingbird also drinks water. Flying across open water, it may descend like a swallow to the surface, touching it with the bill and leaving widening rings on the water to mark the site of the drink. Enemies Inclement weather, such as storms and untimely frost, is one of the most serious threats to the hummingbird's life. It is vulnerable to insect-eating hawks and other predators, as it looks so much like an insect. There is one instance on record of a hummingbird flying over a pool being caught and swallowed by a fish. Accidents also appear to play a significant role. Hummingbirds are sometimes caught in spider's webs, or otherwise entangled and unable to extricate themselves, or are impaled on a thorn or other sharp object. The delicately changeable colours of their plumages, their diminutive sizes in combination with temper and spirit, and their agility and endurance in flight are the principal characteristics that have given Ruby-throated Hummingbirds their place of distinction among birds.

OPERATION RUBYTHROAT: THE HUMMINGBIRD PROJECT Building Environmental Cooperation and Understanding Throughout North and Central America "Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project" is a cross- disciplinary international initiative in which people collaborate to study behavior and distribution of the Ruby- throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris). Although K-12 teachers and students are the primary target audience, Operation RubyThroat is open to ANYONE interested in hummingbirds. http://www.rubythroat.org/

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/odnr/wildlife/publications/wildnotes/humm.html

Photos courtesy: R.W. Scott "Birds in Flight" http://www.gregscott.com/rwscott/rwscott.htm

Check out the Hummer webcam! Webcam http://207.115.221.60/jrwebcams/hbirdfeeder.html

Fun Facts about Hummingbirds They do perch. They have very weak feet and do not use them for transportation. They fly forward, backward, shift sideways, stop in midair. They can beat their wings 60 to 200 times per second. They lap nectar with their tongues. They can fly up to 60 miles per hour. They can live 5-6 years in the wild. They are the smallest bird in the world. They consume, on average, half their weight in sugar each day.

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