If that’s the actual answer, I’m going to be really disappointed.
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That hummingbird is twice the girth of the other ones, and the feeder is tilted under his weight. His new years resolution was to lose weight, and he hasn’t.
Of course it’s unrealistic: hummingbirds have to constantly fight starvation, not obesity; they fuel on sugar water/nectar because it’s the only thing calorically dense enough to keep them alive. But I guess the idea is that “drinking sugar water makes you fat”, which it DOES, in humans, so… I guess that’s the thought?
I think his resolution was to exercise more. Which is ironic, because the hummingbird flaps his wings about 20 million times per second.
They’re remarkably polite for hummingbirds. Someone once said that a hummingbird’s vocabulary is 90% swearing, and in my experience that seems accurate.
Yes, if they would quit fighting each other for territory, they wouldn’t need so much food.
JamesP: 20M/sec, eh? Good one!
Not to live up to my own blog (nitpicking.com) or live up to my other blog (reasonablyliterate.com, a science blog) but sugar water is not calorically dense compared to, say, meat. Or nuts. Nectar is just the food hummingbirds (and their competitors like bees, or hawkmoths) are specialized in eating.
Comics I Don't Understand 
That hummingbird is twice the girth of the other ones, and the feeder is tilted under his weight. His new years resolution was to lose weight, and he hasn’t.
Of course it’s unrealistic: hummingbirds have to constantly fight starvation, not obesity; they fuel on sugar water/nectar because it’s the only thing calorically dense enough to keep them alive. But I guess the idea is that “drinking sugar water makes you fat”, which it DOES, in humans, so… I guess that’s the thought?
I think his resolution was to exercise more. Which is ironic, because the hummingbird flaps his wings about 20 million times per second.
They’re remarkably polite for hummingbirds. Someone once said that a hummingbird’s vocabulary is 90% swearing, and in my experience that seems accurate.
Yes, if they would quit fighting each other for territory, they wouldn’t need so much food.
JamesP: 20M/sec, eh? Good one!
Not to live up to my own blog (nitpicking.com) or live up to my other blog (reasonablyliterate.com, a science blog) but sugar water is not calorically dense compared to, say, meat. Or nuts. Nectar is just the food hummingbirds (and their competitors like bees, or hawkmoths) are specialized in eating.