Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Hummingbirds Suck

My RV's Hummingbird Feeder
Hummingbirds have always fascinated me, but until this year I never put out hummingbird feeders as I usually wasn't sedentary enough to have time to watch and study their behaviors. That changed with my current RV campground hosting job where the lead ranger and I have three feeding stations that attract a lot of birds everyday.

I had made the assumption that they drew their flower nectar in via a suction method as humans do when sucking a straw. Turns out that line of thinking WAS contrary to what ornithologists thought they knew about the mechanical feeding process. They generally thought the birds wicked their nectar.

It turns out they were wrong and new research indicates my uneducated assumption was correct all along.

Even so, I still have a lot to learn about our winged friends.

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