Comments on: Hummingbirds dive to sing with their tails

By: Hugh

Hugh — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:09:57 +0000

excellent point donK… not Don Kroodsma by any chance??

By: donK

donK — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:37:29 +0000

Loud means loud and not strong. You mention several ways hummingbirds can and do make louder sounds that don’t actually require strength. Tiny changes in the feather weight, stiffness, size and shape can greatly change the pitch and volume of the sounds they create. Dive heights between 5 and 40 metres coupled with specialized harmonic feathers seems to show that what is being selected for is not strength of muscle but strength of signal.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 02:22:40 +0000

Glad to see others shooting videos of hummingbirds! I shot some video this weekend of hummingbirds at my feeders. Enjoy! http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonygamboa/6137799308/

By: Whatever

Whatever — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 17:20:29 +0000

@Michelle: The birds lose tail feathers naturally all the time, so it’s not a real hardship. they grow back in a couple weeks.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 21:59:05 +0000

Too bad birds had to lose their tails to satisfy the curiosity of a scientist. I hope they didn’t try their fancy dives when their tails were shorn and were aware enough to wait until they grew back.

By: Phyllograptus

Phyllograptus — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 15:33:52 +0000

A wonderful article. In addition to just the speed of the dive to create the noise, the different species also have a differing dive path shape. I can’t remember which one does which, but one has a Tight J shaped dive path and the other has more of a broad U shaped dive path

By: Jonathan Eisen

Jonathan Eisen — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:28:00 +0000

My first field work was studying hummingbirds at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Colorado with William A. Calder III. One of the things we were studying was the noises made by the male broad tail hummingbirds … Digging out some pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/jonathan.eisen/HummingbirdStudiesRMBL1988?authuser=0&feat=directlink

By: LeslieL

LeslieL — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:59:57 +0000

When we lived in Creston, in southeastern British Columbia, we delighted in the shows male rufous hummingbirds put on for their ladies. They flew in huge figure-8 arcs with the crossover point at the bottom, 10-20 m below the top. I thought the sound they made at the bottom was kind of like the involuntary grunt you’d make if you were on a roller-coaster as the g-forces hit at the bottom of its run. Tail feather flutter makes sense, though.

By: Jeff Sherry

Jeff Sherry — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:21:36 +0000

Fascinating. Isn’t the tail futtering sounds/songs also used for food territories?

By: CarlosT

CarlosT — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 22:31:23 +0000

Tacoma, not Tahoma. Tahoma is the native name for Mount Rainier, but the city and the bridge got the corrupted version.