The team published their results in a paper in the journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances. They also measured each bird’s wingspan, shape, and area. They weighed each bird and estimated how much body fat it carried, and took note of how long the birds stayed at the site to forage before moving on. Zenzal and his team spent four seasons at the site, from 2010 to 2014, capturing, measuring, and banding 2,700 ruby-throated hummingbirds as they arrived. Inexperienced Youngsters Arrive Late and LeanĪlong the Gulf Coast, Alabama’s Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge is a popular stopover point for ruby-throated hummingbirds on their way south. “It is more important to understand what areas hummingbirds are using in order to conserve stopover habitats for migrants,” says Zenzal. To settle the question, Zenzal said, “We would need tracking data from hummingbirds tagged along the Gulf.” Unfortunately, today’s tracking tags are too big for tiny birds like ruby-throated hummingbirds to carry. If birds were flying across then we would expect these dates to be much closer.” “However, banding records from a station in the Yucatan show that peak hummingbird passage is about a month after peak passage at our Alabama study site. “Evidence for trans-Gulf flights includes anecdotal observations of hummingbirds from oil rigs and boats in the Gulf, mainly during spring,” he said. Additionally, although the average hummingbird can make the 1,300-mile flight, most hummingbirds aren’t average some of the birds Zenzal and his colleagues studied had enough stored fat to fly twice that distance. Zenzal and his colleagues think that some hummingbirds make the crossing while others fly along the coast. Of course, air conditions over the Gulf in early autumn aren’t usually still, and hummingbirds, thanks to their small size, are more affected by weather than larger birds. He estimates that it would take a hummingbird about 20 to 30 hours to fly across the Gulf. Dossman) “Our flight range estimates suggest that hummingbirds would be able to make the (roughly) 1,000 km flight, but those estimates are under still air conditions (no influence of wind),” says Zenzal. It turned out that on average, a ruby-throated hummingbird could fly about 1,300 miles (2,261 km) without stopping.Ī Ruby-throated hummingbird is handled by a researcher prior to being released. A team of ornithologists, led by Theodore Zenzal of the University of Southern Mississippi, entered data from hundreds of ruby-throated hummingbirds into a simulator program that calculated how far birds could fly based on their wing shape, weight, and how much energy they stored in the form of fat. A new study proves, at least, that most birds could make the lengthy nonstop flight across the water, as long as the weather was in their favor. Although their migration route follows the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, no one is sure yet whether the tiny birds fly over the Gulf or around it. It’s not clear how often the birds stop along the way for food and rest, or how long they stay. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only hummingbird species that breeds in the eastern U.S., and biologists still don’t know much about their migration habits. When it comes time for their annual winter migration, these birds will start beating their wings and they won't stop until they've covered some 1,300 miles - not bad for a bird that weighs as much as three paperclips. And they may cover greater distances than previously thought, according to a new study which also sheds some light on how young hummingbirds handle the challenges of their first migration. to Central America to winter in warmer climates. Every fall, ruby-throated hummingbirds make the long flight from the eastern U.S. They can can reach flight speeds of up to 63 mph to evade danger. On average, they beat their wings 52 times per second. (Credit: Jack Dean III/Shutterstock) Ruby-throated hummingbirds are impressive birds.
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