https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/tiny-hummingbirds-can-fly-long-long-waySometimes it?s surprising to discover how little we know about common plants or animals. Consider the ruby-throated hummingbird. If you live in the eastern half of Canada or the United States and have spotted a hummingbird hovering around a feeder in the backyard in summer, this is the bird you saw. But while scientists have documented many of the feeding and mating behaviors of the birds and that the birds migrate south to Central America and Cuba, there are still plenty of mysteries, such as whether the birds go the long way through Mexico when they migrate or whether they take a shortcut across the Gulf of Mexico.
It turns out that the tiny birds, some of which are small enough to fit in your hand, could easily take the shortcut, even though they?d get no break on the journey. Based on analyses of wing shape, body size and fat reserves, some of these tiny birds could fly more than 2,000 kilometers in the right winds. That?s more than enough to get them the 1,000 kilometers across the Gulf, researchers report March 9 in The Auk.
