I was editing some videos of hummingbirds at feeders around my yard last week. I was editing out some of the parts where they just have their heads down feeding. I did this by leaving the first...
I was editing some videos of hummingbirds at feeders around my yard last week. I was editing out some of the parts where they just have their heads down feeding. I did this by leaving the first few frames and last few frames and putting the Flow transition between them in Final Cut Pro. It's supposed to be used for cutting out "um"s and "uh"s during interviews and making the cut seamless. But it works in cases like this, too. It turns out the hummers get noticeably fatter when feeding!
Fair point! My spouse and I were trying to figure out whether it was really just filling up their stomachs or whether some other phenomenon was happening. With humans, our stomachs get swollen,...
Fair point! My spouse and I were trying to figure out whether it was really just filling up their stomachs or whether some other phenomenon was happening. With humans, our stomachs get swollen, but not our chests, for example. With the birds, it seemed like their entire body was swelling. I wonder why?
So I went and asked an ornithologist about this. They told me:
So I went and asked an ornithologist about this. They told me:
the nectar first goes into their crop, which is in their neck. On cold days when they eat a lot (especially shortly before sunset) their crops often visibly bulge with nectar, and I can see that happening in your video. Their stomach itself is actually pretty small, and the crop will slowly shrink as they filter food into it, after eating a meal.
But I don't think fully explains your video. The other thing is that when they are flying they produce a lot of heat, so they keep their feathers slicked back to help dump excess heat. That's what you see when your bird first lands. But as they perch and drink cold nectar, they switch from needing to get rid of heat to conserving heat. So I think your bird is fluffing up its feathers to stay warm over the course of the meal.
I was editing some videos of hummingbirds at feeders around my yard last week. I was editing out some of the parts where they just have their heads down feeding. I did this by leaving the first few frames and last few frames and putting the Flow transition between them in Final Cut Pro. It's supposed to be used for cutting out "um"s and "uh"s during interviews and making the cut seamless. But it works in cases like this, too. It turns out the hummers get noticeably fatter when feeding!
This was really cool, thanks for sharing!
Sure thing! It was fun to find this.
What a neat thing to discover! Thank you for showing :)
Fair point! My spouse and I were trying to figure out whether it was really just filling up their stomachs or whether some other phenomenon was happening. With humans, our stomachs get swollen, but not our chests, for example. With the birds, it seemed like their entire body was swelling. I wonder why?
So I went and asked an ornithologist about this. They told me:
Thanks for the explanation!