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

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