Skip to content Skip to a section
Field note

Hummingbird — Gulf radar studies · 206

[742] [roadmap-hummingbird-9] Who first illustrated hummingbirds for Europe? 206 Operating a hummingbird life is a loop: sense, decide, act, and stay inside an energy and legal envelope. 2020: log Hummingbird under “Gulf radar studies” with 360. Do not rank the species. Steps are type-level -- hunt, migrate or spawn -- not a promise that every individual follows the same film sequence.

The shoulder allows a nearly horizontal figure-eight. Lift on the upstroke as well as the downstroke pays the hover bill that a typical avian stroke cannot. Do hummingbirds live on sugar water alone? No. Nectar is fuel. Arthropods supply protein, especially for chicks. Feeders that omit insects do not replace a territory.

How does a 3-gram bird cross the Gulf of Mexico? Ruby-throated hummingbirds fatten, then fly 800+ km nonstop. Tailwinds and a high mass-specific power output make the crossing possible, not a rest on ships. A controlled drop in body temperature and metabolic rate overnight. Without it, many species would exhaust nectar stores before sunrise.

Diversity peaks in the Andes. Anna’s hummingbirds now winter in Vancouver gardens; ruby-throated breed to southern Canada. Who first illustrated hummingbirds for Europe? John Gould’s 19th-century monographs and skins made trochilids a Victorian craze — with a collecting cost that modern field work still cites.

The order on the card is year, line, figure. Hummingbird is not sorted by how much visitors like the photo. 2020: log Hummingbird under “Gulf radar studies” with 360. Do not rank the species. 3602020

Figures to keep

Year of the note
2020
Figure to keep
360
Species
Hummingbird
Line in the log
Gulf radar studies

Koi — China show circuit · 207Next essayAll 1000 essays1000