Category: Dear Mom

Since it is quite difficult to locate a hummingbird’s nest and therefore most of us may never see one for ourselves, I thought I would share with you some information about the hummingbird’s eggs and the length of their gestation period.

In most cases, a female hummingbird will lay two eggs. There are sometimes when the female will only lay one egg. Here is a surprising fact about the eggs, each of the two eggs will be laid on two different days, but the eggs will hatch on the same day. That is right, both eggs will hatch on the same day! How is this? The answer is because the female hummingbird will not start incubating the eggs until both of them have been laid.

The incubation period for hummingbird last usually between 16-18 days, but it can last as long as three weeks if the weather at the time is cooler then usual. The female hummingbird tries to maintain the temperature of the nest at about 96 degrees. So in general, the gestation period of hummingbird eggs is between two and three weeks, depending on the circumstances which are happening at the time.

A hummingbird eggs will be white in color and only about the size of a pea or jelly bean.

I hope you have enjoyed discovering a bit about the gestation period of hummingbird eggs. This is the type of information that I know would have fascinated my mom, and I so wish she was still living for me to be able to share it with her as well as all of you who read this blog.

This post makes me think of my mom who loved discovering fascinating facts or information on a wide variety of subjects, but particularly nature and wildlife.  Thus, I am certain that she would have loved discovering the information found in today’s post and I hope that you will as well.

Did you know that a hummingbird has a part of its anatomy known as the gizzard?  If so, do you know what particular part of the hummingbird’s anatomy is known as the gizzard?  If not, you will have discovered the answer through reading this post.

The gizzard is the term for the hummingbird’s stomach.  As you might have figured out by now, this is where the food is digested.  A hummingbird is able to digest nectar quite quickly and effeciently, with nectar being able to pass entirely through a hummingbird’s entire digestive system in less then 20 minutes.  That’s right, I said in less then 20 minutes!  Don’t you wish that the digestive process occured that rapidly whith in us humans?

Well, once again I never cease to be amazed by all the amazing things I continue to discover about hummingbirds.  Today was no different.  I discovered that hummingbirds can even be found in the Bahama Islands.  This is something I myself did not know before today.  What about you ?

Here below you will find some of the many fascinating discoveries that I made about the Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird.  I hope you will enjoy making them as I myself did.  This is the type of information that I am sure my mom would have loved to have also discovered and that I would have enjoyed discussing with her.

The Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird is considered to be a medium sized hummingbird, even though it is only between 3 and 5 inches in length.  It is the most common species of hummingbird found in the Bahama Islands.  Although very rare, this species of hummingbird has been known to occassionally be seen in south Florida and it usually will be found around gradens located there.  Lastly, the Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird is known to nest all year round and does not migrate.

What is meant by the term site fidelity?  According to the book Hummingbirds of North America by Sheri Williamson it means the following: "the tendency of birds to return to the same nesting, wintering, or migratory stopover locations each year." Page 240.

I do not know about you but I find it to be quite amazing that such a very tiny bird can fly well over a thousand miles each way during migration and the are still able to find the exact location where they spent the summer.  Talk about having a very precise internal radar or GPS system for lack of a better term.  This is just yet another of the many astounding facts about these birds that truly amazes me. 

I think that this is something about hummingbirds that my mom would have enjoyed discovering. Every time I make such a discovery I think of my mom and our shared love of hummingbirds and wish she were still alive today for me to inform her of the latestest discovery about hummingbirds that that I have made.   It is my hope that this will also enjoy making this discovery about hummingbirds.

Even within nature it is a mother’s instinct to want to protect their young.  While any parent certainly has this instinct, it is especially strong in mom’s.  That’s why I know for certain that my mom would have found this post particularly interesting and I hope you will also.

Have you ever wondered what is the most important consideration to a female hummingbird when selecting a nesting site?  Well, wonder no more because here you will discover the answer. 

The female hummingbird will choose to nest in a geographical area in which the temperatures will remain at 96 degrees F or less throughout the nesting cycle.  The reason for this is to help enure the safety of the embryos.  If the tempure were to remain higher then 96 degrees for several hours or days it would "cook" the embryos thus killing them.