Stumbled on a stat about hummingbird metabolism that blew my mind

I was reading this old birding newsletter from Cornell last night, the one my uncle used to get in the mail. Turns out a hummingbird's heart can beat up to 1,260 times per minute when they're active. That floored me, especially since they slow way down at night to conserve energy. I always thought they just slept like regular birds. Has anyone else run into crazy numbers about bird physiology that made you rethink what you see at the feeder?

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rowanbennett5mo ago

Heard a similar stat about how their wings move in a figure-eight pattern... creates lift on both the upstroke and downstroke, which is just insane engineering for something that tiny. Makes sense with that heart rate though, they'd have to be burning energy like crazy just to stay alive. Still can't believe their body temp actually drops close to freezing overnight to save fuel.

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jordan3055mo ago

Wait, their body temp drops that low overnight? I had no idea, that's wild. You know what's funny, I was just telling my wife the other day about how I saw a hummingbird at our feeder during a cold snap last winter and it looked like it was shivering or something. I figured it was just trying to stay warm but now I'm realizing it was probably in some kind of weird energy saving mode. The figure-eight wing thing is crazy too, I remember reading somewhere that they can actually fly backwards which is basically impossible for any other bird. It makes you wonder how something that small even survives with all that going on inside its body. Honestly gives me a whole new respect for the little things.

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