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Hummingbirds: Ornery Helicopters of the Animal Kingdom · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and
0:16
Speaker 1: Jerry's flitting around here. Here they're darting to and fro
0:20
Speaker 1: like a little ruby throated hunter and Emerald and this
0:25
Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. I saw Jerry. I know,
0:29
Speaker 1: I heard Jerry, that's all with my own two eyes.
0:32
Speaker 1: How she doing? Is her hair just completely white? Now? Well,
0:36
Speaker 1: I mean we were fifteen ft away from each other,
0:38
Speaker 1: so I couldn't tell. What did you try squinting? I did? Uh?
0:43
Speaker 1: And I shaved so she didn't even recognize me. I know,
0:46
Speaker 1: I saw that picture. Man, you look great. Yeah, thanks
0:50
Speaker 1: so nice. It's just luxurious. Well, the beards coming back already,
0:55
Speaker 1: huh from the second I shaved it, technically it started
0:59
Speaker 1: coming back. That is true. Are you one of those
1:02
Speaker 1: people who say, like, yeah, from the moment we're born,
1:05
Speaker 1: we start dying. God, you know they're the pits. No,
1:11
Speaker 1: hungrowing it back at It was just a little, uh,
1:14
Speaker 1: just a little change of pace. You know. That's good.
1:16
Speaker 1: Must have felt really weird. Uh, it does still feel
1:20
Speaker 1: pretty weird at times. Well that's good. Well four days later, yeah, So, Chuck,
1:27
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something else that's weird besides
1:30
Speaker 1: the feeling of having just shaved off a beard after
1:33
Speaker 1: fifteen million years, which, by the way, if you want
1:36
Speaker 1: to see that picture, you can go to the movie
1:38
Speaker 1: Crush page on Facebook and see that absolutely. And now
1:42
Speaker 1: continue the weird thing I want to talk about today, Chuck.
1:45
Speaker 1: Are hummingbirds. Hummingbirds, Yes, so they are weird, but they're
1:52
Speaker 1: weird in all of like the most delightful ways. I
1:55
Speaker 1: love hummingbirds, love them, and I love them even more
1:59
Speaker 1: now that I know more about him. You just, Grandma,
2:05
Speaker 1: the air snapped the wings off and popped like you
2:08
Speaker 1: think a quail doesn't produce much meat hummingbird. I have
2:13
Speaker 1: like forty of those for dinner at least that might
2:17
Speaker 1: just be an appetizer. And good luck catching him though,
2:19
Speaker 1: right they are hard to catch. But I have a story. Um,
2:23
Speaker 1: there was a hummingbird once that got into my house
2:26
Speaker 1: and it was for freaking out. It was basically just
2:29
Speaker 1: smacking its head against the ceiling. I know. It was
2:33
Speaker 1: very sad. So I got a chair and I just
2:35
Speaker 1: held my hand up just right by it, and it
2:39
Speaker 1: stopped freaking out and perched on my hand. I had
2:43
Speaker 1: a hummingbird perched motionlessly on my hand, and it stayed
2:48
Speaker 1: there long enough for me to stick my hand out
2:51
Speaker 1: the window and it flew off. How many how many
2:54
Speaker 1: years ago? Was this? That was a while back? I mean,
2:57
Speaker 1: were you a child? No, No, I was I was
3:00
Speaker 1: a man. I must have smelled great too, because the
3:05
Speaker 1: hummingbird chose to trust me. But I thought that was
3:07
Speaker 1: just one of the coolest things ever. That's pretty amazing. Um,
3:11
Speaker 1: a guy in our neighborhood yesterday got attacked by an owl.
3:13
Speaker 1: So that's on the other end of the bird human
3:15
Speaker 1: interaction spectrum. Yeah, an owl or the Jersey devil. It
3:20
Speaker 1: really apparently it's not uncommon to get attacked by an owl. Yeah.
3:25
Speaker 1: I mean, we've got a big one that um makes
3:27
Speaker 1: an almost every evening fly over our backyard to the
3:30
Speaker 1: big forest behind our yard from across the street, and
3:34
Speaker 1: we love this thing. But I didn't know that. I
3:36
Speaker 1: didn't know that they attacked people like this. But it
3:39
Speaker 1: happens your your neighbor, talking rabbit. I don't have a
3:43
Speaker 1: neighbor to where it goes. It's an empty house, so
3:46
Speaker 1: maybe that's why they like it. So No, who was
3:48
Speaker 1: attacked though your neighborhood. Not a neighbor, but just I
3:51
Speaker 1: saw it on the neighborhood facebook page. Some guy was attacked.
3:54
Speaker 1: Like the owl came down and talent his head. It's crazy.
4:00
Speaker 1: Imagine that that killed. I wonder if the guy was like, oh, look,
4:03
Speaker 1: because as are huge. I wonder if he's like, man,
4:05
Speaker 1: I look at that thing. Hey, he's coming at me.
4:07
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, you've got talents in
4:09
Speaker 1: your skull. Oh my god. All right, stop diverting attention
4:13
Speaker 1: from hummingbirds. Yeah. So hummingbirds. Uh, they are with the family. Uh.
4:20
Speaker 1: I had it. I had it earlier and it's really
4:22
Speaker 1: not hard. Uh truck ala day, truck a delay, roca
4:31
Speaker 1: lead and they are related to the swift's uh. And
4:35
Speaker 1: you know hummingbirds, he said, the little bitty fellas. They
4:39
Speaker 1: weigh between two and twenty grahams. They have those long
4:42
Speaker 1: pointy noses that they love to stick in flowers. And
4:46
Speaker 1: they have these wings that and boy, when we get
4:51
Speaker 1: into the fascinating facts about the hummingbird and is those
4:54
Speaker 1: little wings, it gets pretty amazing. But one of the
4:57
Speaker 1: things I'm gonna go ahead and spoil from later and
5:00
Speaker 1: this this stuff you put together was that what's so
5:03
Speaker 1: remarkable about about hummingbirds and how they fly is that
5:05
Speaker 1: they you know, usually when you see a bird fly,
5:08
Speaker 1: they flap down and that provides their lift. Hummingbirds like,
5:12
Speaker 1: no way, buddy, you gotta you gotta get that thing
5:15
Speaker 1: working in both directions, double your pleasure up and down.
5:19
Speaker 1: That is how a hummingbird is able to hover and
5:22
Speaker 1: go in reverse and do all those crazy things is
5:24
Speaker 1: because it's not just flapping, it's flipping and flapping. Yeah,
5:28
Speaker 1: they're the only vertebrate animal that can hover like a helicopter.
5:34
Speaker 1: It's like the Blue Thunder of birds. Whenn't that Roy
5:39
Speaker 1: Scheider movie that was a good one. I think I
5:41
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to watch that because there's some sexy stuff
5:45
Speaker 1: in there. There is the Yeah, the Blue Thunder peaks
5:47
Speaker 1: in some windows, if you know what I mean. Yeah,
5:50
Speaker 1: And it came out at a time when I would
5:52
Speaker 1: watch movies with my mom and she was like, you
5:55
Speaker 1: need to leave the room. Yeah. I don't think I
5:57
Speaker 1: was allowed to watch it at first either, but I
5:59
Speaker 1: think come out of snuck it. Oh, I see what
6:02
Speaker 1: you mean so um. One of the things that that
6:06
Speaker 1: makes hummingbirds so well known, aside from their incredible agility
6:10
Speaker 1: and being the only vertebrate that can hover in midair,
6:14
Speaker 1: is just the look of them. Because if you've ever
6:17
Speaker 1: looked at a hummingbird from afar, you're like, oh, that
6:20
Speaker 1: thing's okay. It's just a kind of a normal looking bird.
6:22
Speaker 1: And then it just moves and catches the sun like
6:24
Speaker 1: just right, and all of a sudden, this splash of
6:29
Speaker 1: metallic jewel like color just crosses its throat and chest,
6:33
Speaker 1: and you say, the hummingbird is truly great. Yeah, it's amazing.
6:39
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the butterfly, uh wings and that
6:43
Speaker 1: if you catch it at the right angle, you get
6:45
Speaker 1: that that metallic sort of shiny color and it's and
6:49
Speaker 1: it's sort of for the same reason those gorgets, which
6:52
Speaker 1: is that uh, that reflective stuff on the upper chest
6:56
Speaker 1: of the hummingbird, and like the throat area, it's not
6:59
Speaker 1: actual pigment, it is the structure of the physical structure
7:03
Speaker 1: of those feathers is little air bubbles inside there that
7:07
Speaker 1: reflect that light. Right, Yeah, and I'm pretty sure we
7:10
Speaker 1: I mean, we did an episode on um butterfly wings iridescence. Yeah,
7:15
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure it is the exact same thing
7:17
Speaker 1: in butterfly wings is in that gorge at that clutch
7:20
Speaker 1: of feathers in the hummingbird. Yeah, so it not only
7:24
Speaker 1: reflects it, but also like bulks it up to pretty
7:27
Speaker 1: neat stuff. So, man, sorry, I guess I'm kind of
7:32
Speaker 1: flemy today. I don't know why, but um my, apologies
7:36
Speaker 1: for being flemy. So um. One thing I didn't realize
7:41
Speaker 1: about hummingbirds is there's three and thirty eight species that
7:44
Speaker 1: we know of, and all of them are found in
7:48
Speaker 1: the America's Did you know that. I don't think I did,
7:52
Speaker 1: But they are found like all throughout the Americas, from
7:56
Speaker 1: Chile all the way up to a southern Alaska and Canada.
8:01
Speaker 1: They've got a pretty wide range. But the thing is
8:04
Speaker 1: that things are so small, so tiny and so um
8:09
Speaker 1: unable to maintain a decent body temperature that they basically
8:14
Speaker 1: follow the summer. Yeah, and they all diverged from a
8:20
Speaker 1: single common ancestor about twenty two million years ago. And
8:24
Speaker 1: the kind of the cool thing is that they keep
8:26
Speaker 1: changing and their rate of speciation is really pretty incredible.
8:30
Speaker 1: It's it's supposedly going to outpace their rate of extinction,
8:34
Speaker 1: and we're going to see well we won't see it
8:38
Speaker 1: because we'll be dead in the next forty years. But
8:42
Speaker 1: but human beings, if we're still around that is, are
8:45
Speaker 1: gonna see the number of species of hummingbird double to
8:49
Speaker 1: what we have today. But it's going to be a
8:51
Speaker 1: few million years, so don't expect that anytime soon. Yeah,
8:54
Speaker 1: but it is pretty cool just to think that, you know,
8:56
Speaker 1: they're still in the midst of their evolutionary history and
8:59
Speaker 1: like right the middle of it. You know, I like
9:02
Speaker 1: that about them. So UM, you know, being that that
9:07
Speaker 1: multi varied species all the way from Patagonia up to Alaska. UM,
9:14
Speaker 1: they have learned to adapt to a bunch of different
9:17
Speaker 1: niches and habitats, right. So you can find UM hummingbird
9:23
Speaker 1: species in like sub sea level deserts. You can find
9:27
Speaker 1: them up in the Andes. There's actually a lot of
9:30
Speaker 1: different species that live in the Andes Mountains. UM. You
9:33
Speaker 1: can find the bulk of them in tropical forests, UM.
9:37
Speaker 1: Around the tropics of the New World. UM. And they've
9:42
Speaker 1: adapted like really well to their different environments. Some migrate,
9:47
Speaker 1: some don't, UM, but all of them are very tiny. Yeah,
9:52
Speaker 1: they're cute little little things. As if you look up
9:55
Speaker 1: a picture of the bee hummingbird just prepared for one
9:59
Speaker 1: of the kut this little I mean, it looks like
10:02
Speaker 1: it looks fake. Yeah, do you know it doesn't look
10:05
Speaker 1: like a bird could actually be that small without becoming
10:07
Speaker 1: an insect. It's gonna just collapse into insect form at anymore.
10:14
Speaker 1: But look it up online. The little b hummingbird from
10:16
Speaker 1: Cuba ways about one point nine five grams. We don't
10:20
Speaker 1: get those here in Georgia, the only kind. And I
10:25
Speaker 1: think how many species are there in the United States,
10:27
Speaker 1: About seventeen or eighteen that's what I saw, But only
10:30
Speaker 1: that ruby throated is the one that we're going to
10:33
Speaker 1: get here on the East coast. Yeah, and and just
10:36
Speaker 1: to go, like to double that up, man, one point
10:39
Speaker 1: nine five grams. Somebody did the math, and you could
10:42
Speaker 1: mail fourteen of those things with one supposed to stamp
10:47
Speaker 1: in the United States. Just smash them down flat. There's
10:50
Speaker 1: not right. There's not a single species of hummingbird that
10:55
Speaker 1: breaks an ounce and wait um, which is to say
10:58
Speaker 1: that the largest hummingbird species there is the giant hummingbird,
11:02
Speaker 1: which is kind of a contradiction in terms, it's still
11:05
Speaker 1: smaller than an Atlantic canary. Wow, the giant hummingbird is
11:11
Speaker 1: still canary size. So this is a very tiny group
11:15
Speaker 1: of birds. Well, and this is the stat that gets me,
11:17
Speaker 1: And this is the one I texted Emily because we
11:20
Speaker 1: love our hummingbirds like all normal humans. Um, the eggs
11:24
Speaker 1: of the ruby throated hummingbird that we have here in
11:27
Speaker 1: Georgia are the size of a p Can you believe that?
11:33
Speaker 1: Did you look up their um their nests pictures of
11:36
Speaker 1: their nests. They're gorgeous. It looks like something you'd buy
11:39
Speaker 1: on Etsy. They look kind of like made of felt.
11:43
Speaker 1: Because hummingbirds use spider silk. They take old spider webs
11:47
Speaker 1: and use them as thread to weave like um their nests,
11:51
Speaker 1: along with plant fibers and leaves and twigs to give
11:54
Speaker 1: it kind of the spongy, velvety, super cush feel for
11:59
Speaker 1: their little bit babies velvety mouth feel exactly. So we're
12:05
Speaker 1: gonna talk a lot about the hummingbird flying and because
12:08
Speaker 1: it's pretty remarkable. It's one of the most remarkable things
12:11
Speaker 1: in nature. Like I think it's right up there with
12:14
Speaker 1: like the chromatophors of the octopus and uh, I was
12:19
Speaker 1: about to spoil our live show, but maybe I should.
12:21
Speaker 1: Are we ever gonna be on stage again? I don't know,
12:24
Speaker 1: but let's just hold onto it just in case. All right,
12:26
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep that in our back pocket. But the wings,
12:30
Speaker 1: the wing muscles of hummingbird account to about of its
12:35
Speaker 1: total body weight. So this thing is all like it
12:38
Speaker 1: it It never has legs. Day at the gym, it's
12:40
Speaker 1: always do an upper body and the legs are tiny
12:43
Speaker 1: and weak, and they really don't walk. I mean, they
12:46
Speaker 1: can perch, but if you see a hummingbird, they're going
12:49
Speaker 1: to be moving. If you notice, you never see a
12:51
Speaker 1: hummingbird just kind of strolling around in your on your
12:53
Speaker 1: deck or something. Yeah, they kind of have legs similar
12:57
Speaker 1: to David Cross's character in that Titanic sketch from Mr. Show.
13:03
Speaker 1: Do you remember, So that's he's kind of Hummingberg like
13:07
Speaker 1: in that respect. But yeah, if your legs are that
13:10
Speaker 1: week and your wings are that strong, you're gonna spend
13:12
Speaker 1: most of your time in mid air. And they basically do,
13:15
Speaker 1: although they do you know, they nest on branches, they
13:18
Speaker 1: sleep on branches, they do perch. They made on branches.
13:22
Speaker 1: As we'll see on your finger. Apparently they palm in
13:26
Speaker 1: your hand. Oh, it was palm in your hand. It
13:29
Speaker 1: was the palm in my hand. Yeah, I gave it
13:30
Speaker 1: plenty of space. Um. And then they also sometimes will
13:35
Speaker 1: sleep upside down, just kind of dangling from a twig
13:39
Speaker 1: or something with their spinley little legs like a bat. Yeah.
13:44
Speaker 1: So the just some amazing stats about their their ability
13:49
Speaker 1: to fly. Like we said, they're the only vertebrate they
13:51
Speaker 1: can hover in place. They can also fly upside down backward. Um.
13:58
Speaker 1: They really are big time show offs. They can get
14:00
Speaker 1: up to speeds of more than forty five miles per hour.
14:04
Speaker 1: God knows how many kilometers per hour that is. It's
14:07
Speaker 1: a lot on some of their dives. But even like
14:10
Speaker 1: an average speed for them of just flying around you
14:14
Speaker 1: know where they're not just you know, going from flower
14:16
Speaker 1: to flower, but they're like say, traveling from place to place,
14:19
Speaker 1: is you know, thirty plus miles an hour. That's pretty impressive. No,
14:23
Speaker 1: it's super impressive. And if you think, man, a, how
14:27
Speaker 1: fast are those little wings going and be what is
14:30
Speaker 1: their little cardiovascular system doing? It's it's doing exactly what
14:34
Speaker 1: you think it is. They have their heart beats about
14:35
Speaker 1: two times per minute when it's hanging out and doing nothing,
14:41
Speaker 1: about times a minute when it's flying, and those wings
14:44
Speaker 1: range from seventy up and down strokes per second or
14:49
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's if that counts as one or two,
14:54
Speaker 1: And I was wondering that myself, and I'm not sure
14:57
Speaker 1: that that is answered. At the very least, we're not
14:59
Speaker 1: going to answer it because we don't have that answer. Well,
15:01
Speaker 1: how about it doesn't matter because either way it's a ton.
15:05
Speaker 1: It's either it's seventy times per second when they're just
15:08
Speaker 1: flying normally around to get some some good sweet stuff.
15:12
Speaker 1: But that courtship dive, which we're gonna talk about a
15:14
Speaker 1: little later that you mentioned about two hundred times per
15:17
Speaker 1: second those wings are flapping, Yeah, and I actually know
15:20
Speaker 1: that you say it. If they're kind of doubling up
15:23
Speaker 1: what a flap is, then maybe hummingbirds aren't so impressive
15:26
Speaker 1: after all. Lazies, so chuck. When you're flapping your wings
15:31
Speaker 1: a hundred or two hundred times per second, depending on
15:35
Speaker 1: whether you're counting the upbeats and the downbeats as a
15:37
Speaker 1: single flap or not. Um you need like a lot
15:41
Speaker 1: of energy to do that, and as a result, The
15:45
Speaker 1: hummingbird typically eats about two to three times its own
15:48
Speaker 1: weight and food every day. Yeah, like if that was
15:54
Speaker 1: a human, you would, uh, let me see here, that's
15:58
Speaker 1: the equivalent of about it. Two hundred and eighty five
16:03
Speaker 1: pounds of hamburger? Is that? And three hundred and seventy
16:08
Speaker 1: pounds of potatoes? No? I think each of these Okay,
16:11
Speaker 1: so take your pick. If you want to eat just hamburger,
16:14
Speaker 1: it would be two five pounds a day. That's a
16:17
Speaker 1: whole cow. That's uh yeah, I think a little bit.
16:20
Speaker 1: I think cows way more than that. But well, but
16:23
Speaker 1: as far as usable beef, I don't know. There you go.
16:26
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for any vegetarians out there by me saying
16:29
Speaker 1: usable beef just made wretch in your mouth. Maybe it's
16:35
Speaker 1: an album name now that I think about usable beef
16:39
Speaker 1: by the band what Jungle X. Right. So, uh, yeah,
16:45
Speaker 1: they eat a lot because they need to, and um,
16:48
Speaker 1: it's like it's like fourth of July for them every day. Yeah,
16:52
Speaker 1: pretty much three two to three times their own waiting food. Yeah,
16:57
Speaker 1: and this is uh we're talking about just on normal days.
17:00
Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about the migration and
17:02
Speaker 1: what they need to beef up, then I think we should.
17:05
Speaker 1: So they migrate like we like we talked about, they're
17:08
Speaker 1: not exactly sure what triggers that they think. Maybe they
17:11
Speaker 1: see the change in daylight like some other animals and
17:14
Speaker 1: birds do, or maybe just the fact that flowers, you know,
17:17
Speaker 1: what the flowers are doing. But I think that that's
17:20
Speaker 1: the one, that's the big one, because they can't go
17:23
Speaker 1: for more than a few hours without food, so they
17:26
Speaker 1: need to go where the plants are flowering, it right,
17:29
Speaker 1: They just kind of follow that, and I guess they're
17:30
Speaker 1: always connected to that, those subtle changes in the flowering exactly.
17:35
Speaker 1: So during this migration, their heart beats about in sixty
17:39
Speaker 1: times a minute, and they have to gain because they're trekking.
17:43
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes they're they're flying over the Gulf of
17:46
Speaker 1: Mexico and one shot over the course of a few days.
17:49
Speaker 1: So they need to bulk up big time. They gain
17:51
Speaker 1: about their body weight before they start this migration. And
17:56
Speaker 1: if we're going to do the human equivalent again for this,
17:59
Speaker 1: if you were person that wagh a hundred and seventy pounds,
18:02
Speaker 1: that means you'd have to gain up to about two
18:04
Speaker 1: fifty five in a few weeks time, Like Christian bale Esque.
18:10
Speaker 1: I know in just a few weeks, man, that's crazy.
18:14
Speaker 1: So um. One of the things that's so impressive about
18:16
Speaker 1: the hummingbird is just how far it can fly in
18:19
Speaker 1: a day, especially for how small it is, you know. Um,
18:23
Speaker 1: they they average something like twenty three miles a day
18:26
Speaker 1: when they're migrating. But the ruby throated hummingbird the one
18:31
Speaker 1: that it's the only one that you'll find east of
18:35
Speaker 1: the Mississippi. So if you see a hummingbird in your
18:37
Speaker 1: east of the Mississippi, you can be like a ornithologist
18:40
Speaker 1: for once in your life and be like, that's a
18:43
Speaker 1: ruby throat at hummingbird. Um. They they actually can travel
18:47
Speaker 1: for extraordinarily long stretches, and they do because their wintering
18:52
Speaker 1: grounds are in the Yucatan, but they hang out in
18:56
Speaker 1: Florida during the other part of the year, I guess
18:58
Speaker 1: during the summer, and so they travel over the Gulf
19:02
Speaker 1: of Mexico, they think, and when they do that, they
19:04
Speaker 1: do it in like a straight five miles stretch within
19:08
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty two hours without stopping. That's that's incredibly impressive,
19:14
Speaker 1: it really is. But then there was a study in
19:16
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen that found they could go even further, right, Yeah,
19:19
Speaker 1: they said, you know, physiologically, in theory they could fly
19:24
Speaker 1: close to fourteen hundred miles without stopping if they needed to.
19:28
Speaker 1: That's crazy. That's that'd be like flying from Atlanta to Albuquerque.
19:33
Speaker 1: If you want a reference. That means nothing to nobody.
19:35
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering when they rest, when they finally
19:39
Speaker 1: get down to that sweet soil in Mexico, they can
19:42
Speaker 1: enter torpor, which we've talked about before. It is sort
19:45
Speaker 1: of hibernation light really deep sleep like state. Their metabolic
19:51
Speaker 1: functions are really slowed. I think they can drop their
19:54
Speaker 1: their body temperature by thirty to forty Greece fahrenheit. They
19:58
Speaker 1: lower that heart rate from about twelve beats per minute
20:01
Speaker 1: to as few as fifty And they do this after
20:04
Speaker 1: they after they migrate, but they can do this anytime
20:06
Speaker 1: they need to, and they do. Yeah, they do um
20:10
Speaker 1: And also I think it depends on where they live
20:12
Speaker 1: because hummingbirds, like I said, a lot of them live
20:15
Speaker 1: in the andes, like high up on the mountain side,
20:18
Speaker 1: and even in the summer, it can get kind of
20:21
Speaker 1: cool there. So when the temperature cools enough that it
20:24
Speaker 1: makes no sense for them to keep up their metabolic
20:27
Speaker 1: rate to try to meet their hundred and five degree
20:30
Speaker 1: hype body temperature, they'll enter torpor and that's just what
20:34
Speaker 1: they do for sleep. Um and one of the other
20:38
Speaker 1: things that I want to point out about them living
20:40
Speaker 1: in the Andes, Chuck, This is all really just a
20:42
Speaker 1: segue for this amazing fact they live in the Andes,
20:46
Speaker 1: despite the fact and there are some species that are
20:49
Speaker 1: native to the Andies, not just like migrating to that's
20:51
Speaker 1: where they live as the Andies. Despite the fact that
20:53
Speaker 1: they have these high metabolic rates and they need more oxygen. Well,
20:57
Speaker 1: there's just inherently less oxygen in the air are up
21:00
Speaker 1: in the mountains, and it's harder to hover because the
21:03
Speaker 1: air is thinner. And yet they are so successful there
21:07
Speaker 1: in the Andies that up above a certain line, there's
21:10
Speaker 1: no insects, and so it's up to the hummingbirds exclusively
21:14
Speaker 1: to pollinate all the flowering plants up there. Yeah, I mean,
21:17
Speaker 1: I think that's that's probably why, like they have the
21:19
Speaker 1: market cornered up there. They're like, all right, well, let's
21:22
Speaker 1: adapt so we can kind of own this area. And
21:25
Speaker 1: not only that, I don't think we mentioned that sometimes
21:27
Speaker 1: if you're a small enough hummingbird and there's a big
21:29
Speaker 1: enough insect, the insect is can can win that battle.
21:35
Speaker 1: In hummingbird world, the insect eat you. Alright, Branson, misery,
21:43
Speaker 1: Let's take a break. I figured that was going to
21:46
Speaker 1: trigger a breage. All right, Well we'll come back right
21:48
Speaker 1: now to talk more about hummingbirds. Okay, Chuck, So we're
22:20
Speaker 1: talking more about hummingbirds. Um. One of the things that
22:23
Speaker 1: I really feel like we just need to underscore here
22:26
Speaker 1: is that they are metabolic wonders. They live on this
22:30
Speaker 1: edge of survival where they will die if they go
22:34
Speaker 1: a few hours without food. Like, do you know how
22:36
Speaker 1: many days you a human being can go without food
22:38
Speaker 1: before you die, as long as you have water and
22:41
Speaker 1: maybe access to a couple of vitamins or whatever. We
22:44
Speaker 1: did a podcast on that at some point, I'm pretty
22:46
Speaker 1: sure we did. Yeah, Angus Barber or Barbie, I can't remember. Um,
22:51
Speaker 1: they die within hours, so they constantly have to search
22:55
Speaker 1: for food sources. Yeah, that's why you see them flitting
22:58
Speaker 1: about constantly there, always looking for food. M But it's
23:02
Speaker 1: also one of the reasons why they're known as potentially
23:06
Speaker 1: the most unsociable and most territorial bird in existence. Yeah,
23:12
Speaker 1: they don't like hanging out with each other. Um. There
23:14
Speaker 1: are some exceptions that we're going to talk about, but
23:17
Speaker 1: they generally don't don't like hang out together. They don't
23:20
Speaker 1: like hanging out with other birds. At the end of
23:22
Speaker 1: the day, when everyone's just sing songing by the shoreline,
23:26
Speaker 1: hummingbirds are like, no, screw you, guys, I gotta eat.
23:30
Speaker 1: And not only do I have to eat, I gotta
23:32
Speaker 1: make a little hummingbird p eggs. And we talked about
23:37
Speaker 1: this courtship dive. We kind of teased it out. This
23:39
Speaker 1: is pretty incredible. Uh, and this is you know, one
23:42
Speaker 1: of a lot of times in mating rituals you'll see
23:45
Speaker 1: the males doing these kind of big fancy shows, Yeah,
23:50
Speaker 1: trying and dogs playing poker. That was that was all about.
23:53
Speaker 1: The photographer was a female dog, and so you'll, I
23:58
Speaker 1: guess it wasn't a photograph, was it. It It was probably painting.
24:01
Speaker 1: I think about it and stuff. You should know, world,
24:03
Speaker 1: It was a photograp but it was a tin type
24:06
Speaker 1: so it was very old. It's so um, it was funny.
24:10
Speaker 1: I was telling my daughter today about my bed. She
24:13
Speaker 1: always loves hearing stories about me and my brother as
24:15
Speaker 1: a kid. And I was telling her about my teenage
24:18
Speaker 1: bedroom and I was like, i'll show you a picture
24:19
Speaker 1: one day. I've got pictures. And she said, you had
24:21
Speaker 1: a phone when you were little, and I was like, oh, boy,
24:25
Speaker 1: that's what it's like these days. And I had to
24:29
Speaker 1: explain that, you know, this phone, camera and a phone
24:33
Speaker 1: is kind of a new thing, Like they used to
24:34
Speaker 1: be two different pieces of equipment. Yes, they were two
24:39
Speaker 1: very bulky different pieces of equipment. And a phone used
24:41
Speaker 1: to be attached to your wall in your kitchen. Oh yeah,
24:46
Speaker 1: that's true. But if you were, you know, super wealthy,
24:49
Speaker 1: you have when it was really really long, because that's
24:52
Speaker 1: exactly the deal. So, uh. The courtship dive is when
24:59
Speaker 1: the mail was trying to attra act the female for
25:01
Speaker 1: a little loving They will fly up in the air
25:03
Speaker 1: really high, about fifty or sixty ft and then dive
25:07
Speaker 1: bomb toward the female as fast as it can go,
25:10
Speaker 1: and they're they are flying the whole way. They're not
25:12
Speaker 1: just they don't tuck the wing back and the wings
25:15
Speaker 1: back like you're parachuting or something like. They're flying as
25:18
Speaker 1: fast as they can right at this lady's face and
25:22
Speaker 1: within inches of her head going full tilt. They just
25:26
Speaker 1: pull up real quick and they hit her in the
25:29
Speaker 1: arm twice and say two for flinching. They put on
25:33
Speaker 1: the brakes and she flies right by. But that's what
25:35
Speaker 1: they do is crazy. They fly right at their face
25:37
Speaker 1: and then stop. If the female gets a little turned on,
25:40
Speaker 1: she might flit about in the air with them, and
25:43
Speaker 1: then that's where people might think, oh, look at those
25:46
Speaker 1: two hummingbirds are up in the air having sex. Not
25:48
Speaker 1: true now, and maybe your mom would tell you that
25:52
Speaker 1: you need to leave the room because hummingbirds are doing
25:54
Speaker 1: it right there. But that's not what they're doing. They
25:57
Speaker 1: actually they actually um copulate perched on a branch, um man.
26:09
Speaker 1: The female lands on the branch. Sometimes, like you said,
26:13
Speaker 1: she'll join them in the air. Other times she'll just
26:15
Speaker 1: be like, come on down here, you you win, let's
26:18
Speaker 1: go and um. The male mounts are from behind on
26:22
Speaker 1: the branch, and just like with everything else, the hummingbirds
26:27
Speaker 1: are super quick at sex too. Apparently it takes about
26:30
Speaker 1: four seconds and then that's it, like wham bam, thank
26:35
Speaker 1: you ma'am, yep, and the male flies away. He doesn't
26:38
Speaker 1: hang around and see if it took he goes on
26:40
Speaker 1: to have sex with another female, and uh, the lady
26:45
Speaker 1: goes like, what is this a fern bar? Who are you?
26:49
Speaker 1: Jack tripper? And so she goes off and builds a
26:52
Speaker 1: nest and does all the parenting. Like I said, you know,
26:55
Speaker 1: they don't mate for life. They don't even stick around
26:58
Speaker 1: after they mate at all. It's just they're in, they're out,
27:01
Speaker 1: they're gone. And I mean you might think, well, that's
27:04
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big bummer, poor poor female. Poor yeah,
27:09
Speaker 1: poor lady hummingbirds. That that's exactly how they want it. Because,
27:12
Speaker 1: like we said, as as the species is known as
27:16
Speaker 1: or all of the species, the hummingbird is known as
27:19
Speaker 1: the most territorial bird. So it seems, at least as
27:23
Speaker 1: far as natural selection is concerned, females prefer this arrangement
27:28
Speaker 1: no pair and printing um or mating pair and printing
27:31
Speaker 1: to where they just do all the work themselves, because
27:34
Speaker 1: that means that they can also have their own access
27:38
Speaker 1: to their food source, to where no matter what the
27:41
Speaker 1: what the male hummingbird is going to bring the table
27:43
Speaker 1: and say childbearing or whatever, it's not worth the food
27:48
Speaker 1: that this female would have to share. And that's where
27:50
Speaker 1: their territoriality comes from because remember, hummingbirds live on this
27:55
Speaker 1: edge of survival where if they go for hours without food,
27:58
Speaker 1: they will die. So they are really really protective of
28:02
Speaker 1: their food source, to the point where a female hummingbird
28:06
Speaker 1: would preferably raised young on her own then share her
28:10
Speaker 1: food source with the male. Yeah, I mean it's kind
28:12
Speaker 1: of cool. Actually, I get the picture that the female
28:14
Speaker 1: hummingbird is like, I need you for one thing. It
28:18
Speaker 1: takes four seconds, and believe me, if I could go
28:21
Speaker 1: to a sperm bank, I would prefer that. Honestly, I thought,
28:24
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, believe me, you're gonna have the time
28:27
Speaker 1: of your life. But those four seconds will be a
28:29
Speaker 1: wild ride, my friend. That's right. Come come meet me
28:33
Speaker 1: on this branch over here, baby, and tho it's gonna
28:35
Speaker 1: be a it's gonna be a stone gas Hey, baby,
28:40
Speaker 1: come here. So those gorgets that we were talking about,
28:45
Speaker 1: those really colorful, iridescent, sort of fluffy chest and neck
28:50
Speaker 1: feathers of the male um Like with many animals, the
28:54
Speaker 1: more brightly colored and showy that is, the more the
28:57
Speaker 1: female might be attracted because that might indicate that male
29:01
Speaker 1: bird's fitness because you know, you gotta takes a lot
29:04
Speaker 1: of work to keep that that hairstyle up. So he
29:07
Speaker 1: must be pretty pretty strong and have, you know, pretty
29:11
Speaker 1: good at organizing his day to day uh list to
29:14
Speaker 1: do effectively the exact same signals that Joe Dirt put
29:19
Speaker 1: out with his hair. You know, he was obviously very
29:23
Speaker 1: genetically fit and ready to get I never saw that,
29:27
Speaker 1: you should. It's definitely it's got a lot of heart.
29:29
Speaker 1: I think I say that every time you say you
29:31
Speaker 1: never saw it, but it's worth checking out for sure.
29:34
Speaker 1: I'm it's one of those ones. You know, some don't
29:36
Speaker 1: age very well. I think it came poorly aged right
29:40
Speaker 1: out of the right out of the production facility, but
29:44
Speaker 1: that that's one of the great beauties of it. It's
29:47
Speaker 1: definitely worth seeing. Well, speaking of uh aged right out
29:51
Speaker 1: of the shoot. Um. That's kind of the deal with
29:53
Speaker 1: hummingbird babies too. The mom doesn't there's not a lot
29:58
Speaker 1: of teaching and like here, let me show you the robes.
30:00
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, all right, this is the world
30:02
Speaker 1: you've been hatched from your little piece eyed egg. Now
30:06
Speaker 1: go out there and be a hummingbird learn learn it
30:08
Speaker 1: all on your own, kiddo. But what's amazing though, is
30:11
Speaker 1: that they do learn this on their own. They have
30:13
Speaker 1: astounding memories, to the point where when they migrate people
30:18
Speaker 1: who put out feeders, which will talk about in a
30:20
Speaker 1: little bit UM for hummingbirds, note that the same ones
30:25
Speaker 1: um or what they believe is the same one, comes
30:28
Speaker 1: back year after year. And what's even more astounding, frequently
30:32
Speaker 1: on the same day of the year, the same date,
30:36
Speaker 1: the same humming bird will come back year after year
30:38
Speaker 1: on this on his or her migration, right, And that
30:41
Speaker 1: they just understand this, they knows. And part of it, yes,
30:43
Speaker 1: is following flowers and the blooming patterns of flowers. But
30:49
Speaker 1: they also think it they might have UM some sort
30:52
Speaker 1: of magnetic compass built in that possibly part of their
30:55
Speaker 1: pineal gland, which is light sensitive, is used. UM manages
31:00
Speaker 1: to use the sun as a compass. UM And that
31:02
Speaker 1: they have a sounding memories somehow, some way, because apparently
31:06
Speaker 1: their brain is about the size of a grain of
31:08
Speaker 1: rice in most cases. Yeah, And the other thing they'll
31:10
Speaker 1: go too is if they have UM speaking of coming
31:12
Speaker 1: back to the buffet, if they have a a patch
31:16
Speaker 1: of flowers, let's say, on your property that they just love,
31:19
Speaker 1: they'll be like, all right, this is this is mine.
31:22
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go ahead and claim this. I'm gonna
31:24
Speaker 1: come back here because you've got all the good stuff.
31:26
Speaker 1: My beak fits that flower just perfectly. And uh and
31:30
Speaker 1: we'll talk here in a minute more about what they
31:32
Speaker 1: eat and why. But they will, they will fiercely protect
31:37
Speaker 1: that little patch of flowers that they love so much
31:39
Speaker 1: and go back to it time and time again. Yes,
31:42
Speaker 1: So that's where their territoriality comes from, is protecting food sources,
31:47
Speaker 1: and not just food sources, Like I've been growing this
31:49
Speaker 1: patch of flowers all summer. Stay away. They could stop
31:53
Speaker 1: somewhere for a half of an hour and um or
31:57
Speaker 1: colloquially half hour um, and we'll still protect like that
32:03
Speaker 1: flower patch that they stopped by if somebody comes along
32:06
Speaker 1: and tries to get it. And the whole reason that
32:08
Speaker 1: they do this is because, like they eat nectar along
32:12
Speaker 1: with some other stuff, and it takes a really long
32:14
Speaker 1: time for a flower to produce nectar. So the hummingbird
32:18
Speaker 1: would love to just have to go to the flower
32:21
Speaker 1: once and get the full dose of nectar, but they
32:23
Speaker 1: can't just wait around because other things will um come
32:26
Speaker 1: and eat there the nectar they've been hanging out for
32:28
Speaker 1: so they've developed this secondary behavior, which is territoriality, where
32:33
Speaker 1: they'll chase off other hummingbirds. They'll chase off over the birds.
32:35
Speaker 1: They've been known to chase off hawks even if the
32:38
Speaker 1: hawk comes a little close for their comfort. Yeah, and
32:41
Speaker 1: they'll you know, I think early on in the in
32:43
Speaker 1: the Hummingbird uh Council of nineteen fift they said all
32:48
Speaker 1: the socialist hummingbirds got together and said, hey, if we
32:51
Speaker 1: all relax, just let that nectar build up, it'll be
32:54
Speaker 1: a lot easier to eat. And all the other you know,
32:58
Speaker 1: the little I'm not gonna I don't want to get
33:00
Speaker 1: cool here. But there were some hummingbirds that were like, no,
33:03
Speaker 1: ay man, I'm not playing ball. I'm gonna get in
33:05
Speaker 1: there and get that nectar whenever I feel like it. Right,
33:09
Speaker 1: So the you couldn't work it out, no, and the ones,
33:13
Speaker 1: the other ones that wouldn't go along with it, fired
33:15
Speaker 1: all the air traffic controlling hummingbirds. That's right, Yeah, I
33:20
Speaker 1: think we should take a break. I think so let's
33:22
Speaker 1: take a break and we'll finish up about what they
33:25
Speaker 1: eat and all about those little feeders that you have
33:28
Speaker 1: in your backyard. Right after this okay, chuck, so um.
34:00
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that hummingbirds eat nectar, and that's definitely true,
34:03
Speaker 1: and they're very well adapted to eat nectar. They have
34:06
Speaker 1: this tube like tongue that apparently uses a wicking action
34:10
Speaker 1: to soak up nectar from a flower on a plant,
34:14
Speaker 1: and they do this. This tongue can actually carry a
34:17
Speaker 1: load of nectar into their mouths like thirteen times a
34:20
Speaker 1: second fast. Not that surprising that they're doing this super
34:25
Speaker 1: fast too, but um, it's still pretty impressive. But it's
34:28
Speaker 1: not just nectar. It's not the only thing that they eat.
34:30
Speaker 1: And actually people found out the hard way that they
34:33
Speaker 1: didn't just eat nectar because captured hummingbirds who were studied
34:39
Speaker 1: in the in in captivity died pretty quickly when all
34:42
Speaker 1: they were given was like a sugar water solution or
34:44
Speaker 1: even a nectar solution. And so they came to realize
34:47
Speaker 1: that they actually eat a lot of insects too, And
34:52
Speaker 1: that's one of the great things about hummingbirds. In addition
34:54
Speaker 1: to being pollinators, they're also really big at insect controls.
34:58
Speaker 1: And one of the insects that they eat or blood
35:00
Speaker 1: sucking mosquitoes, Yeah, mosquitoes, little spiders. Uh. And this is
35:05
Speaker 1: in addition to I don't think we mentioned, uh, the
35:08
Speaker 1: one thousand to two thousand flower blossoms that they will
35:11
Speaker 1: go poke every single day. M hm. So that's why
35:15
Speaker 1: I mean when we talk about these these hummingbirds are
35:18
Speaker 1: are food scavengers. Up to two thousand flowers a day.
35:22
Speaker 1: That's pretty intense, it really is. So that makes them
35:25
Speaker 1: very very important pollinators. Like we said in the andies,
35:28
Speaker 1: where you know you're above the insect line, it's just
35:31
Speaker 1: up the hummingbirds to pollinate flowers. So when they're going
35:33
Speaker 1: from flower to flower getting that nectar, if you pretend
35:38
Speaker 1: that evolution is a living, breathing thing, evolution has created
35:42
Speaker 1: this arrangement where the flower produces a nectar treat in
35:47
Speaker 1: exchange or to attract the little hummingbird. And then when
35:50
Speaker 1: the hummingbirds getting its little nectar treat, the flower just
35:53
Speaker 1: kind of goes, here's a little pollen on your forehead.
35:56
Speaker 1: Go find another flower that looks like me, and you'll
35:58
Speaker 1: find another nectar treat and then transfer this pall in
36:01
Speaker 1: while you do so, they pollinate a lot of um
36:04
Speaker 1: important stuff. And uh, in addition to to eating lots
36:08
Speaker 1: of bugs, so they're just all around great animals. Yeah,
36:11
Speaker 1: and uh, they love that nectar. If you're thinking about
36:14
Speaker 1: flowers in your own garden, if you want to attract
36:16
Speaker 1: some hummingbirds, they want to sugar content of about. Um.
36:21
Speaker 1: It can't be too It can't be like a Windy's
36:23
Speaker 1: frosty because they're using that That tongue acts sort of
36:27
Speaker 1: like a straw, So you've gotta get that spoon with
36:30
Speaker 1: the frosty. You can't suck that thing up. If you try,
36:32
Speaker 1: you're gonna pass out in your car while you're driving.
36:35
Speaker 1: Always look crossing so that that sugar concentrated can't be
36:39
Speaker 1: too too sticky um, because like I said, they're sucking
36:43
Speaker 1: that thing up. Um. Oftentimes you'll see red or orange
36:47
Speaker 1: petals or bracts. Um. They're often long and tubular because
36:51
Speaker 1: that long tongue and beak can get in there when
36:55
Speaker 1: others can't. So that kind of gives them the market
36:58
Speaker 1: cornered on that particular flower. It keeps out posers, it does.
37:02
Speaker 1: And this is the cool thing. Those flowers that you
37:05
Speaker 1: see that sort of trumpet downward. You know, unless you
37:08
Speaker 1: can hover, you're out of luck there. So they love
37:10
Speaker 1: these things because they can hover yep um. So there's
37:14
Speaker 1: a lot of actually, there's a lot of plants that
37:17
Speaker 1: have flowers that kind of fit this bill, and most
37:20
Speaker 1: hummingbirds aren't really fit the bill man. That was an
37:25
Speaker 1: unintentional I guess the beach. Well, you know the ducks.
37:29
Speaker 1: Bill and ducks are birds right right, um so, but
37:35
Speaker 1: they're not super specialized. They'll eat just about anything that
37:38
Speaker 1: they can get nectar out of. But there are definitely
37:41
Speaker 1: kinds of flowers that are UM have kind of co
37:44
Speaker 1: evolved with hummingbirds to kind of give them what they're
37:48
Speaker 1: looking for more easily. But one of the problems with UM,
37:53
Speaker 1: with human development, as with all things, is we kind
37:56
Speaker 1: of have supplanted a lot of those kinds of flowers
37:59
Speaker 1: good uses. If you have heard all this and you're like,
38:02
Speaker 1: I wanna encourage hummingbirds to keep living, you can plant
38:06
Speaker 1: these flowers pretty easy. Yeah. I sent this list to Emily.
38:08
Speaker 1: Actually because we have our garden is very um. Our
38:13
Speaker 1: garden is very much built for use UM for use
38:18
Speaker 1: and Emily's budding interest in herbalism and use for the
38:22
Speaker 1: insects that we know and the birds that we know
38:25
Speaker 1: inhabit our area. So it's not just like, oh that's
38:28
Speaker 1: pretty like we wanted to be a real thing that
38:31
Speaker 1: works for our local environment. I can't remember who said it,
38:35
Speaker 1: but there's a famous quote that nothing useless can ever
38:38
Speaker 1: truly be beautiful, and I found that that is one
38:41
Speaker 1: of the truest things ever said. Nothing useless, useless can
38:48
Speaker 1: never truly be beautiful. I think that broke my brain.
38:52
Speaker 1: What does that mean? It just means that use like usefulness,
38:57
Speaker 1: like the the ability for something too to have a purpose,
39:03
Speaker 1: is an important part of his existence. And so just
39:07
Speaker 1: beauty alone doesn't justify the exast. That's what I thought
39:11
Speaker 1: it was saying. But something felt like a double negative
39:14
Speaker 1: in there. That kind of broke my brain a little bit,
39:15
Speaker 1: you overthought, I so uh be bomb the the old
39:22
Speaker 1: trumpet creeper um, which was Miles Davis's nickname for a
39:26
Speaker 1: little while when he was drilling holes in bathroom wall.
39:30
Speaker 1: The cardinal flower, the columbine, and the coral honeysuckle are
39:35
Speaker 1: all very hummingbird friendly flowers and plants that you can
39:38
Speaker 1: put in your yard. And I said that to Emily,
39:40
Speaker 1: and I think we have a couple of these. We
39:42
Speaker 1: used to have columbine and dump she's gonna bring that back,
39:45
Speaker 1: and uh, we we're gonna see if we can get
39:47
Speaker 1: some more hummingbird action in our in our backyard. That's awesome,
39:50
Speaker 1: some hot, sticky hummingbird act. Four seconds of pleasure. So um,
39:55
Speaker 1: you can also just go get yourself a hummingbird feeder. Um.
39:59
Speaker 1: And a lot of people put red food die in there,
40:03
Speaker 1: and that is actually a controversial move. There's some concern
40:06
Speaker 1: among hummingbird enthusiasts UM that the die actually can be
40:11
Speaker 1: harmful over long periods of time, maybe it can build up,
40:14
Speaker 1: because again, hummingbirds have very tiny origins because they're a
40:18
Speaker 1: very tiny bird, so introducing this artificial red dye might
40:21
Speaker 1: not be the best idea. Other people say, that's totally unsubstantiated.
40:25
Speaker 1: There's never been any proof that it actually harms hummingbirds.
40:28
Speaker 1: And then the other people say, back, it's totally unnecessary.
40:32
Speaker 1: The bird's gonna find the sugar water either way, So
40:35
Speaker 1: why add the red dye just in case it is harmful?
40:39
Speaker 1: If it's just unnecessary. So most most hummingbird enthusiasts say,
40:43
Speaker 1: don't put red dye in your hummingbird sugar water. Yes,
40:46
Speaker 1: and that UM solution mixture is important. You can't just
40:51
Speaker 1: don't just dump a bunch of syrup and water together,
40:54
Speaker 1: or a bunch of sugar cane or whatever. It is
40:56
Speaker 1: four parts water to one part sugar, because they need,
41:00
Speaker 1: you know, specific sugar content of about and that four
41:04
Speaker 1: to one makes about if my math is correct, it does.
41:08
Speaker 1: It's is close enclose enough. So one of the other
41:11
Speaker 1: ways you can help hummingbirds too is um in the
41:14
Speaker 1: most delicious way by choosing coffee that has grown in
41:18
Speaker 1: a situation that allows hummingbirds to thrive. Yeah, this is
41:22
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this. This is really cool. There
41:24
Speaker 1: there is certified bird friendly coffee because we were talking
41:28
Speaker 1: about the andies and the fact that the birds travel
41:31
Speaker 1: great distances and elevations up and down these mountains, and
41:36
Speaker 1: coffee is grown about halfway up these tropical mountains and
41:40
Speaker 1: they have a lot of great you know flowers under
41:43
Speaker 1: the shady canopy there, and it's a really nice home
41:46
Speaker 1: for hummingbirds there. And if you drink bird friendly coffee,
41:50
Speaker 1: that means that there they have these flowers and they're
41:53
Speaker 1: making sure they take care of these flowers, right, And yeah,
41:56
Speaker 1: it's it's um grown in a kind of like a
41:59
Speaker 1: simulated forest is closely simulated as possible. So you want
42:03
Speaker 1: to look for something that says it's bird friendly, rainforest
42:06
Speaker 1: alliance and or shade grown, and that probably means that
42:11
Speaker 1: hummingbirds are thriving on those coffee plantations. And I went
42:14
Speaker 1: and looked in my beloved bat Door from Bronson. Coffees
42:18
Speaker 1: are all bird friendly of course and shade grown. Um
42:24
Speaker 1: oh yeah, same here. I'm crazy for that. So I've
42:27
Speaker 1: got a great, great blend for you, Um Trader Joe's
42:31
Speaker 1: Decalfe Beans half and the other half um bat Door
42:37
Speaker 1: from Bronson Whirling Dervish. It's it's the most amazing combination ever.
42:43
Speaker 1: Want to get that a shot. I don't you know,
42:44
Speaker 1: I'm not drinking coffee now because of it's not winter,
42:48
Speaker 1: but Emily still has her latte every morning and she
42:51
Speaker 1: she just has their you know, their espresso beans coffee
42:55
Speaker 1: is a three hundred and sixty five day a year activity.
42:59
Speaker 1: I know, not for me, but I get it. That's okay.
43:02
Speaker 1: I'm not going to yum your yuck. Very well done.
43:08
Speaker 1: So that's it for hummingbirds, right, that's it. Well, if
43:12
Speaker 1: you want to know more about hummingbirds, get one to
43:14
Speaker 1: land in your hand and study it up close and personal,
43:17
Speaker 1: but don't mess with it because it's protected under the
43:19
Speaker 1: Migratory Bird Treaty Act of the United States, and you
43:24
Speaker 1: could land in jail and pay up to a two
43:25
Speaker 1: thousand dollar fine for harm and good. Uh And since
43:29
Speaker 1: I said two thousand dollar fine everybody, that means, of course,
43:32
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mayl I'm gonna talk about the
43:39
Speaker 1: exploding birthmark. Hey, guys, A big fan of the show,
43:42
Speaker 1: which I listened to while I'm cooking breakfast, doing laundry
43:45
Speaker 1: and staring oh boy, get this and staring at one
43:48
Speaker 1: hundred thousand row Excel spreadsheets for work man, My soul
43:55
Speaker 1: just shuddered. I know. I recently listened to the episode
43:58
Speaker 1: on birth marks and thought even like to the story
44:00
Speaker 1: of my birthmark that exploded. I was born with two birthmarks,
44:04
Speaker 1: both of which have since been removed. One of those
44:06
Speaker 1: birth marks was dark brownish red and a circle on
44:10
Speaker 1: the inside of my right thigh. I didn't think much
44:11
Speaker 1: of it because it wasn't very visible, and like you
44:13
Speaker 1: said on the show, lots of people have birth marks. However,
44:16
Speaker 1: when I was in the third grade, my family and
44:18
Speaker 1: I were about to leave for my aunt's house to
44:20
Speaker 1: celebrate Thanksgiving. When I realized my pants kept sticking to
44:24
Speaker 1: my legs, I went to the bathroom and removed my pants,
44:27
Speaker 1: and I saw blood running down my leg. As a
44:29
Speaker 1: third grader who had not yet even learned about menstruation,
44:33
Speaker 1: I assumed I was dying, so I freaked out. It
44:36
Speaker 1: turns out my birth mark was the result of a
44:38
Speaker 1: vascular malformation the size of a small bouncy ball in
44:42
Speaker 1: my inner thigh. The tangled up ball of veins had
44:46
Speaker 1: ruptured that Thanksgiving morning, and I had to go to
44:48
Speaker 1: the e er where they stuck a tiny piece of
44:50
Speaker 1: foam on my leg and probably charges about two thousand
44:53
Speaker 1: dollars because hospitals. A few months later, I had it
44:56
Speaker 1: surgically removed, and now I have a three inch long
44:58
Speaker 1: scar instead of a birthmark. But because of my surgery,
45:02
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to run for a few weeks and
45:04
Speaker 1: I got out of running the mile. So who's the
45:07
Speaker 1: winner now, Lucky, thanks for helping me seem really knowledgeable
45:12
Speaker 1: on very specific topics, and that it's from Bailey. Nice Bailey.
45:15
Speaker 1: That was a great story. Pretty good. Bailey left out
45:19
Speaker 1: that ironically, both the birthmark and the scar were in
45:22
Speaker 1: the shape of Satan. And by the way, Bailey says
45:26
Speaker 1: in the PS that the other birthmark was hemangioma on
45:32
Speaker 1: the bottom lip that was removed. So man, that's interesting stuff,
45:39
Speaker 1: very interesting. And what was the fact that I kept
45:41
Speaker 1: saying over and over again about haman Gioma's that they're
45:44
Speaker 1: tangled cluster of blood vessels. I don't think so, okay,
45:48
Speaker 1: So maybe there were two the same kind of birthmark.
45:50
Speaker 1: Maybe so well, Thanks a lot, Bailey, And if you
45:52
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, like Bailey didn't
45:54
Speaker 1: share an amazing story, we're always up for those. You
45:57
Speaker 1: can get in touch with us via email these days
46:00
Speaker 1: at Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff You
46:07
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
46:10
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
46:12
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
46:14
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H