Here in southeast Texas the most commonly seen hummingbird is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Like most hummingbirds, they seem to always be feeding or in flight. Even though this is not true it caused me to wonder just how much food does a Ruby-throated Hummingbird need to survive a typical day. The answer may surprise you as much as it did me.
As amazing as this sounds, on a typical day, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird only requires 10 calories of food to survive. Can you believe how few calories they need to make it through the day, mom? That seem like an incredibly small amount, because you would think that they would burn far more then that per day with their seemingly high, non-stop activity levels. Sugar water and flower nectar will provide this in the form of carbohydrates or they will gain this in the form of fats or protein which is gotten through the eating of tiny insects or spiders.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we as human beings could survive on only needing 10 calories per day? You would have loved that mom because then you could have gotten away with cooking far less often. Also, we would certainly all eat far less per day and therefore likely loose weight far more easily.
Now on a personal note, I must apologize for not having made a post in the past few days. This was due to the fact that I was suffering from an extremely bad migraine headache that struck without warning and forced me to remain in bed until today.