by Bonnie Lynn Herendeen

Photographs by Dan Conway and Ann Martin

Although we eat insects to give us protein, vitamins, and minerals, our favorite food is found in the many types of tube-shaped flowers where sweet nectar is produced inside their centers. Our long beaks help us reach the nectar, and our tongues lap it up, giving us the energy we need to keep flying! We eat several small meals a day because our crop, which is our stomach, is tiny and cannot hold a large amount of food.

We build our nests from spider webbing, bud scales, bark and bits of lichen, which is a form of fungus that grows on trees. The insides of our nests are lined with plant down, animal fur, soft grass, or moss. Our nests are smaller than a baseball and resemble tree knots, which makes them go unnoticed most of the time.

You may think that since our bodies and our nests are quite small, our eggs would be extremely tiny. You would be right! They are indeed very tiny and only the size of a plump raisin. Other birds lay eggs equaling two to four percent of their body weight. We usually lay two eggs that each weigh ten to twenty percent of our own weight, which is less than an ounce! Compare this fact with a 130-pound human mother giving birth to a twenty-pound baby and in reality, the average human baby weighs only seven pounds and you've got quite a big baby sister or brother to deal with!

Early in September, here in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, the cool north winds begin to blow. That's when I must head south like many other kinds of birds. For energy, I must make my last rounds gathering up nectar from the wildflowers that grow beside the mountain streams before I begin my flight into unexplored territory. Flying above the treetops, I will follow the contour of the mountainous land below me.

With the wind at my tail, the miles and days pass quickly. I stop along the way to take my regular drinks of nectar from the flowers to keep up my strength for the long journey ahead. When bad weather hits, I find shelter and stay in an area where there are plenty of flowers from which to feed. Some humans are kind enough to place special feeders out for me which are filled with a mixture of sugar and water. This helps a great deal since I am on a tight schedule and trying to escape the colder temperatures and snow that will be arriving soon.

After the weather clears, I continue my journey and reach the treetops of the Alabama foothills descending through a forest canopy to a creek below. Growing along this sandy creek's banks are thousands of waist-high jewelweeds where red-orange flowers dangle like Japanese lanterns from the branches. I stay here for about four days, then head south once again, stopping to drink from more flowers that grow along the creeks lined with cypress trees.

After three more days of flying, I reach the edge of a huge green-gray body of water which is the Gulf of Mexico. It has no visible shore on the opposite side. I retreat inland where I rest and feed on the trumpet creeper vines before my flight across this vast body of water.

Since leaving upstate New York, I have flown nearly 1,100 miles. In less than a week, the temperature and winds tell me that it is time to take what will be one of several longest single journeys of my life. Riding a tailwind, I skim low over the water and head directly south once again. There is no perch to rest upon as I cross this large mass of water and so I fly on.

After nine hours of constant flying that covers over 540 miles of water, I finally spot land--the north shore of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Soon I see a mangrove forest behind the beach and quickly find a branch where I wearily land and take a well-deserved nap. Later, I wake up hungry and immediately find some flowers where I guzzle the nectar and eat a few little gnats from the base of the plant.

It takes me a few days of rest and feeding from the nectar of the nearby flowers to recover from my recent voyage. The urge to head south still dominates me, and I continue on. My flight is not as grueling though as I fly over land and my routine is the same as before I crossed the Gulf. I feed in the morning, fly in the afternoon, and then feed again before dusk and a night's rest.

I do this for several more days, winging south above the fields and woodlands of the Yucatan. I finally reach my destination--nearly 2,500 miles and many days later. I settle in along the Guatemala border. I stay there for five months, then begin my return journey which will amazingly bring me back to the same northern summer territory from which I flew away. I am able to do this because of my excellent memory that can also remember the homes where humans have placed those special feeders outside for me.

Every five to six months, this journey of traveling back and forth to the north and south will be repeated, making my life a well-traveled one for someone as tiny as me, the hummingbird.

Here is a suggestion for you. The next time you are in a library, go to a world atlas and look up the area I travelled and that you just finished reading about. Remember, I started in upstate New York, North America and ended up in Guatemala, Central America. The visual distance you will see is certainly going to amaze you whenever you think of me and the flight of the hummingbird!