HUMMINGBIRDS

In Britain during the 70s, if you were a coffee drinker, you were either a Nescafe person or a Maxwell House one. That was pretty much your whole choice, pre-Starbucks and Costa Coffee. They were basically the same stuff, they looked the same, they tasted the same. 

But sipping on a Nescafe said you were a bit cooler, a touch more edgy, probably due to the presence of Gareth Hunt in the commercials (I know, I know...but we didn't know any better back then). Maxwell house was a rather more staid brand. It just didn't have the glamour of Gareth's famous red cup. 

I feel the same way about hummingbirds and sunbirds. They occupy the same zoological niche, hummingbirds in the Americas and sunbirds in Africa. They both fly around at great speed like little sparkly jewels. But hummingbirds are, to my mind, innately cooler than sunbirds. It's the way they've been PR'd over the years. 

 

They are the only bird that can fly backwards. They have the smallest bird species (the bee hummingbird). They can fly at up to 35 mph. And many of them are really colourful. What's not to like?

Hummingbirds (or 'hummers' to the street ornithologist) feed on nectar and small crustaceans which they ingest by means of a long, grooved tongue (above). They eat small meals, but a lot of them, in order to replace the energy expended by flapping their wings at up to ninety times per second. A hummer can ingest over twelve times its body weight in nectar every day.

But the most appealing thing about them isn't these Discovery channel factoids. The best thing about hummingbirds is that they're mad. No self respecting bird would look like a Tufted Coquette (below). It's insanely bling. It's like something that's been decorated by a three year old, with all the spikes and the crest and the spots glued on all over it...

And it isn't just the look of them. The temperament of the hummingbird is unstable to say the least. Hummers seem to have no fear. Nobody told them that they were tiny. Hence, they will attack any intruder into their territory with a kind of Banzai good humour. And often see it off, in the same way that a human will try to escape from an irritating insect. Eventually, the little thing buzzing round your head  becomes too much, and you move away. I have stood at hummingbird feeders and have a hummer lower itself into position a foot away from the end of my nose, like an attack helicopter considering its options. If a hummingbird could talk instead of just hum, it would, I've always felt, do the scene from Taxi Driver ("You looking at me...huh"?).

So I always get a bit of a thrill when I'm going to a hummingbird area. These tiny birds have more personality than almost any other species. And, like butterflies, they lift your spirits and cheer you up as soon as you see them, in a way that sunbirds just...don't.

Sorry, sunbirds. But I'm a Nescafe person.