• facebook
  • twitter
  • pinterest
  • 500px
  • instagram
  • flickr
  • google
  • rss

Travel To Eat

Look...Learn...Eat...Live

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Categories
    • Arabia
    • Belgium
    • Bridges and Buildings
    • California
    • Cathedrals & Churches
    • Clocks and Astrolabes
    • Colorado
    • Cooking and Recipes
    • Egypt
    • Ethiopia
    • Events
    • Food and Drinks
    • France
      • Versailles
      • Paris
      • Rouen and Normandy
    • Plants and Gardens
    • History
    • Jewels and Jewelry
    • Las Vegas
    • London
    • Maps
    • Monument
    • Museums
      • Painting
      • Sculpture
      • The Louvre
      • British Museum
    • Portugal
    • Restaurant Reviews
    • Rome
    • This and That
  • Blog
  • Glossary

May 13, 2019 by Kurt Buzard

Exquisite Hummingbirds in Costa Rica

Male White-Necked Jacobin Hummingbird (Florisuga mellivora). Flores, Guápiles, Costa Rica

Male White-Necked Jacobin Hummingbird (Florisuga mellivora). Flores, Guápiles, Costa Rica

I can honestly say that the hummingbirds of Costa Rica are the most beautiful birds I have ever seen and I will share them with you in this post. Hummingbirds are from the New World and constitute the family Trochilidae. They are some of the smallest birds in the world and have the greatest metabolism of any animal. To keep energy when food is limited, and nightly when not foraging, they go into dormancy, a state similar to hibernation, slowing metabolic rate to 1/15th of its normal rate. They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound generated by their whipping wings which wave at high frequencies audible to humans. They flutter in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rates, typically around 70 to 80 times per second, allowing them also to fly at speeds exceeding 34 miles per hour. Hummingbirds fall into nine main groups or clades, the Topazes and Jacobians, Hermits, Mangoes, Brilliants, Coquettes, the giant hummingbird Patagona, Mountain Gems, Bees, and Emeralds as established by DNA evidence. These clades also define their relationship to nectar-bearing flowering plants and the birds’ continued spread into new geographic areas. The brilliant, iridescent colors of hummingbird plumage are caused by the refraction of incident light by the structures of certain feathers. Like any diffraction grating or prism, these structures split light into its component colors, and only certain frequencies are then refracted back to your eyes. Thus, you have to be in a particular location with respect to the light and hummingbird to see the bright colors of the head and neck or gorget. I have arranged the hummingbirds in this post roughly by elevation with the highest elevations first and the lowest elevations last.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Animals, Aquariums and Zoos, Birds, Costa Rica Tagged With: Bronze-Tailed Plumeleteer Hummingbird, Costa Rica, Fiery-Throated Hummingbird, Gray-Tailed Mountain-Gem Hummingbird, Hummingbird Clades, hummingbirds, Lesser Violetear, Long Billed Hermit Hummingbird, McGuire et al, Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird, Sapphire-Throated Hummingbird, Scaly-Breasted Hummingbird, Stripe-Throated Hermit Hummingbird, Striped-Tailed Hummingbird, Talamanca Hummingbird, Violet-Headed Hummingbird, Volcano Hummingbird, White-Necked Jacobin Hummingbird

Search the Site

Site Tags

Africa Ancient Egypt Auckland Australia Birds Birdwatching Botswana British Museum California Cappadocia Cathedrals & Churches Colorado Costa Rica Denver Eiffel Tower Flowers France Garden Istanbul Kunsthistorisches Museum Kurt Buzard MD Larco Museum Las Vegas Lima London Louis XIV Madagascar Mesopotamia Montreal Museums Napoleon I Napoleon III Nevada New Zealand Normandy Painting Paris Peru Restaurant Sculpture Sydney The Louvre Tomatoes Turkey Vienna

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Twitter

Welcome to Travel to Eat

This website has been redesigned from the ground up to make it easier for you, the reader to find posts that might interest you. Just click on a photo to select the topic or the blog for the most recent posts

Buzardweb@gmail.com

Civilization

Every society has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it unique. Because ancient civilizations continue to influence us today, and because I love history, I have devoted many posts to prehistory and ancient civilizations.

About the Blog

This blog is a collection of my thoughts on places, things and places, that I find interesting. There are no advertisements, no cookies and I do not share your email address with anyone. I hope you enjoy your visit and I hope you will return and leave a comment.

Subscribe Us

Copyright © 2021 · Travel To Eat · Built on the Genesis Framework