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Showing posts with the label Black-chinned

The odd couple

PBS' Nature series on Sunday night had a feature on the amazing hummingbirds. They are the smallest warm-blooded creatures on the face of the earth and they live only in the Americas. There are more than 300 species of the little critters. Their hearts beat more than 600 times a minute under normal hummingbird activity. At night, when they enter a state called torpor in order to save energy, their heart rate can drop as low as the 30s and their temperature can drop from about 110 degrees down to the 50s. Some species of these tiny creatures, such as the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, make a migratory flight of some 600 miles one way, twice a year. These are creatures for which the adjective "amazing" truly fits. I would even venture to use that greatly overused adjective (which I normally abhor) "awesome". I didn't get to see Nature on Sunday, but I DVR'd the show and watched it during lunch today. Of all the remarkable parts of the story, one parti...