Colorful diamonds with superpowers

Author: Louisa Bayer

It was one of my first days in Uvita. I looked out of the kitchen window in the morning and saw him. A small, colorful bird floated on a bush covered with flowers. Almost as if he were standing in the air. Immediately I knew that it was a hummingbird. Like a small, speedy, elegant diamond, shimmering, fast, and conspicuous, they fly through the forests and gardens of Costa Rica. The characteristics I had read about before in all the books and websites matched. Seeing this colorful diamond in the free nature was amazing. 54 of 368 different species live in Costa Rica. But they can be found all over the American continent.

They float through the air like a small, speedy, elegant diamond. These tiny creatures can do far more than impress with their colorful, shimmering, beautiful plumage. They are true body acrobats, able to do the most amazing things with their little bodies. That's probably why I find them so fascinating!

With 60 wing beats per second, they can "stand" in the air and fly backward. During their swoops, which they perform for females during courtship, they can reach speeds of between 50 and 95 kilometers per hour. The tiny, inconspicuous hummingbird is one of the fastest vertebrates in the world. No wonder that the heart of the colorful bird is an absolute high-performance machine. The heart beats around 400 to 500 times a minute and supplies the tiny body with sufficient oxygen.

Like a small, speedy, elegant diamond, they can be found on bushes and shrubs. The swift creatures are optimally adapted to their environment with their long beaks. The long, thin beak allows them to lick nectar from flowers. Many people believe in the myth that hummingbirds suck the nectar as if it was a straw.

Matching their rapid lifestyle is their eating behavior. They lick the nectar out of flowers 13 times a second. To keep up their high energy levels, they need sufficient food. The little bird has to eat around three times its body weight a day to compensate for the high energy consumption. Not only sweet nectar is on the menu. The hummingbird also eats small insects. They provide essential proteins.

His feathers shimmer in all colors. Like a small, speedy, elegant diamond, they immediately catch the eye. When I saw the hummingbird in front of my kitchen window, its feathers shone in a rich iriscident green. But blue, dark red, and brown also prevailed. The different bright colors are mostly created by interference in the hummingbird.

Depending on the incidence of light, the color can look different. When light hits the slats on the feathers at a certain angle, the light is reflected. By looking at it from different angles, the hummingbird has a wide variety of colors. Every time I see a hummingbird here in Costa Rica, I am delighted. I stop, fascinated, to watch the small, speedy, elegant diamonds of nature.