Stuff You Should Know - Hummingbirds: Ornery Helicopters of the Animal Kingdom

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

If you didn’t already know how amazing hummingbirds are, prepare to learn. Not only do they count among their numbers the smallest bird species, they are also lightning fast and have the endurance of a marathoner and a telethoner put together. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Step You Should Know, a production of iHeart radios, How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's flitting around here, here, there,

darting to and fro. Like a little ruby, throated, Honduran emerald. And this is Step You Should Know. I saw Jerry. I know, I heard Jerry. I saw her with my own two eyes. How's she doing? Is her hair just completely white now?

Well, I mean, we were 15 feet away from each other, so I couldn't tell. What, did you try squinting? I did, and I shaved so she didn't even recognize me. I know, I saw that picture, man, you look great. Yeah, thanks. It's so nice, it's just luxurious. Well, how are the beards coming back?

Already, huh? From the second I shaved it, technically it started coming back. That is true. Are you one of those people who say like, yeah, from the moment we're born, we start dying? No, God, I hate those people. I know, they're the pits.

No, hunger on it back out, it was just a little change of pace, you know? That's good, must've felt really weird. It does still feel pretty weird at times. Well, that's good. Like four days later, yeah. Yeah, so Chuck, I wanna talk about something else that's weird besides the feeling of having just shaved

off a beard after 15 million years. Which, by the way, if you wanna see that picture, you can go to the movie crush page on Facebook and see that. Absolutely. And now continue. The weird thing I wanna talk about today, Chuck, are hummingbirds, hummingbirds, yes.

So they are weird, but they're weird in all of the most delightful ways. I love hummingbirds, love them. And I love them even more now that I know more about them. Yeah, good eating. Yeah, you just grab them out of the air, snap the wings off and pop them. Like you think a quail doesn't produce much meat,

hummingbird, gotta have like 40 of those for dinner. At least, that might just be an appetizer. Good luck catching them though, right? They are hard to catch, but I have a story. There was a hummingbird once that got into my house and it was freaking out. It was basically just smacking its head against the ceiling. I know, it was very sad.

So I got a chair and I just held my hand up just right by it and it stopped freaking out and perched on my hand. I had a hummingbird perched motionlessly on my hand and it stayed there long enough for me to stick my hand out the window and it flew off. How many years ago was this? That was a while back, I mean. Were you a child?

No, no, no. I was a man. I must have smelled great too because the hummingbird chose to trust me. But I thought that was just one of the coolest things ever. That's pretty amazing. A guy in our neighborhood yesterday got attacked by an owl. So that's on the other end

of the bird-human interaction spectrum. Yeah, an owl or the Jersey Devil? It really, apparently it's not uncommon. To get attacked by an owl? Yeah, I mean, we've got a big one that makes an almost every evening fly over our backyard to the big forest behind our yard from across the street and we love this thing.

But I didn't know that they attacked people like this, but it happens. Is your neighbor a talking rabbit? I don't have a neighbor to where it goes. It's an empty house. So maybe that's why they like it. So no, who was attacked though? Your neighbor, who was attacked?

Oh, not a neighbor, but just I saw it on the neighborhood Facebook page. Some guy was attacked like the owl came down and taloned his head. That's crazy dude. Did you imagine? I'll bet that killed. I wonder if the guy was like,

oh, look, because owls are huge. I wonder if he was like, man, look at that thing. Hey, he's coming at me. And then all of a sudden you've got talons in your skull. Oh my God. All right. Stop diverting attention from hummingbirds. Yeah.

So hummingbirds, they are with the family. I had it earlier and it's really not hard. Trocalidae, trocadillae. Trocalidae. Trocalidae. Trocalidae. Trocalidae. And they are related to these swifts.

Yeah. And you know hummingbirds. These are the little bitty fellas. They weigh between two and 20 grams. They have those long pointy noses that they love to stick in flowers. And they have these wings that, and boy, when we get into the fascinating facts

about the hummingbird and those little wings, it gets pretty amazing. But one of the things I'm gonna go ahead and spoil from later in this, the stuff you put together was that what's so remarkable about hummingbirds and how they fly is that they, you know, usually when you see a bird fly,

they flap down and that provides their lift. A hummingbird's like, no way, buddy, you gotta get that thing working in both directions. Double your pleasure. Up and down. That is how a hummingbird is able to hover and go in reverse and do all those crazy things is because it's not just flapping,

it's flipping and flapping. Yeah, they're the only vertebrate animal that can hover like a helicopter. It's like the blue thunder of birds. Wasn't that a Roy Scheider movie? Yeah, that was a good one. I think I wasn't allowed to watch that because there's some sexy stuff in there.

There is, yeah, the blue thunder peeks in some windows, if you know what I mean. Yeah, and it came out at a time when I would watch movies with my mom and she was like, you need to leave the room. Yeah, I don't think I was allowed to watch it at first either, but I think I might have snuck it. Yeah, I see what you mean.

So one of the things that makes hummingbirds so well known aside from their incredible agility and being the only vertebrate that can hover in midair is just the look of them. Because if you've ever looked at a hummingbird from afar, you're like, oh, that thing's okay. It's just a kind of a normal looking bird. And then it just moves and catches the sunlight just right.

And all of a sudden, this splash of metallic jewel-like color just crosses its throat and chest and you say, the hummingbird is truly great. Yeah, it's amazing. It's sort of like the butterfly wings in that if you catch it at the right angle, you get that metallic sort of shiny color.

And it's sort of for the same reason, those gorgets, which is that reflective stuff on the upper chest of the hummingbird and like the throat area, it's not actual pigment. It is the structure, the physical structure of those feathers, these little air bubbles inside there that reflect that light.

Right, yeah, and I'm pretty sure, I mean, we did an episode on butterfly wings. Yeah, iridescence. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure it is the exact same thing in butterfly wings is in that gorget, that clutch of feathers in the hummingbird. Pretty cool. Yeah, so it not only reflects it,

but it also like bulks it up too. Pretty neat stuff. So man, sorry, I guess I'm kind of flimmy today. I don't know why, but my apologies for being flimmy. That's all right. So one thing I didn't realize about hummingbirds is there's 338 species that we know of and all of them are found in the Americas.

Did you know that? I don't think I did. But they are found like all throughout the Americas from Chile all the way up to Southern Alaska and Canada. They've got a pretty wide range, but the thing is the things are so small, so tiny and so unable to maintain a decent body temperature that they basically follow the summer when they migrate.

Yeah, and they all diverged from a single common ancestor about 22 million years ago. And the kind of the cool thing is that they keep changing and their rate of speciation is really pretty incredible. It's supposedly gonna outpace their rate of extinction and we're gonna see, well, we won't see it because we'll be dead in the next 40 years. But human beings, if we're still around that is,

are gonna see the number of species of hummingbird double to what we have today, but it's gonna be a few million years. So don't expect that anytime soon. Yeah, but it is pretty cool just to think that, they're still in the midst of their evolutionary history and like right in the middle of it, you know? Yeah, totally. I like that about them.

So being that multi varied species all the way from Patagonia up to Alaska, they have learned to adapt to a bunch of different niches and habitats, right? So you can find hummingbird species in like sub sea level deserts. You can find them up in the Andes. There's actually a lot of different species

that live in the Andes Mountains. You can find the bulk of them in tropical forests around the tropics of the new world. And they've adapted like really well to their different environments. Some migrate, some don't, but all of them are very tiny. Yeah, they're cute little things as if you look up a picture of the bee hummingbird,

just prepare for one of the cutest little, I mean, it looks like, it looks fake. Yeah, it does. You know, it doesn't look like a bird could actually be that small without becoming an insect. It's gonna just collapse into insect form at any moment. Look it up online, the little bee hummingbird from Cuba weighs about 1.95 grams.

We don't get those here in Georgia, the only kind. And I think, how many species are there in the United States about 17 or 18? Yeah, that's what I saw. But only that ruby-throated is the one that we're gonna get here on the East Coast. Yeah, and just to go, like to double that up, man, 1.95 grams, somebody did the math

and you could mail 14 of those things with one postage stamp in the United States. Just smash them down flat. There's not ever, there's not a single species of hummingbird that breaks an ounce in weight, which is to say that the largest hummingbird species there is, the giant hummingbird, which is kind of a contradiction in terms,

it's still smaller than an Atlantic canary. Wow. The giant hummingbird is still canary size. So this is a very tiny group of birds. Well, and this is the stat that gets me, and this is the one I texted Emily, because we love our hummingbirds, like all normal humans.

Sure. The eggs of the ruby-throated hummingbird that we have here in Georgia are the size of AP. Can you believe that? Did you look up their nests, pictures of their nests? Oh, yeah. They're gorgeous. It looks like something you'd buy on Etsy.

They look kind of like made of felt, because hummingbirds use spider silk. They take old spider webs and use them as thread to weave like their nests, along with plant fibers and leaves and twigs, to give it kind of this spongy, velvety, super kush feel for their little babies. Velvety mouth feel.

Exactly, exactly. So we're gonna talk a lot about the hummingbird flying and, because it's pretty remarkable. It's one of the most remarkable things in nature. Like, I think it's right up there with like the chromatophores of the octopus, and I was about to spoil our live show, but maybe I should.

Are we ever gonna be on stage again? I don't know, but let's just hold on to it just in case. All right, we're gonna keep that in our back pocket. Yeah. But the wings, the wing muscles of a hummingbird account to about 25 to 30% of its total body weight. So this thing is all, it never has legs day at the gym. It's always doing upper body.

And the legs are tiny and weak, and they really don't walk. I mean, they can perch, but if you see a hummingbird, they're gonna be moving. If you notice, you never see a hummingbird just kind of strolling around on your deck or something. Yeah, they kind of have legs similar to David Cross's character in that Titanica sketch

from Mr. Show, do you remember? I do. So he's kind of hummingbird-like in that respect. But yeah, if your legs are that weak and your wings are that strong, you're gonna spend most of your time in midair. And they basically do, although they nest on branches, they sleep on branches, they do perch,

they mate on branches as we'll see. You perch on your finger, apparently. Palm of your hand. Oh, it was palm of your hand? It was the palm of my hand, yeah. I gave it plenty of space. Okay, I got you. And then they also sometimes will sleep upside down,

just kind of dangling from a twig or something with their spindly little legs, like a bat. Oh, wow. Yeah. So the, just some amazing stats about their ability to fly. Like we said, they're the only vertebrate they can hover in place.

They can also fly upside down, backward. They're real show-offs. They really are big-time show-offs. They can get up to speeds of more than 45 miles per hour. God knows how many kilometers per hour that is. That's a lot. On some of their dives. But even like an average speed for them

of just flying around, you know, where they're not just, you know, going from flower to flower, but they're like, say, traveling from place to place, is, you know, 30 plus miles an hour. That's pretty impressive. No, it's super impressive. And if you think, man, A,

how fast are those little wings going? And B, what is their little cardiovascular system doing? It's doing exactly what you think it is. They have their heartbeats about 225 times per minute when it's hanging out and doing nothing. Right. About 1,200 times a minute when it's flying. And those wings range from 70 up and down strokes per second.

Or I wonder if that counts as one or two. I was wondering that myself. And I'm not sure that that is answered. At the very least, we're not going to answer it because we don't have that answer. Well, how about it doesn't matter because either way, it's a ton. It's either, it's 70 times per second

when they're just flying normally around to get some good sweet stuff. But that courtship dive, which we're going to talk about a little later that you mentioned, about 200 times per second those wings are flapping. Yeah. And actually, now that you say it, if they're kind of doubling up what a flap is,

then maybe hummingbirds aren't so impressive after all. Lazy. So Chuck, when you're flapping your wings 100 or 200 times per second, depending on whether you're counting the up beats and the down beats as a single flap or not, you need like a lot of energy to do that. And as a result, the hummingbird typically eats

about two to three times its own weight in food every day. Yeah, like if that was a human, you would, let me see here, it's the equivalent of about 285 pounds of hamburger. Is that and 370 pounds of potatoes? No, I think each of these. Okay, so take your pick. If you want to eat just hamburger,

it would be 285 pounds a day. That's a whole cow. That's a, yeah, I think a little bit, I think cows weigh more than that, but well, but as far as usable beef, I don't know. There you go. I'm sorry for any vegetarians out there by me saying usable beef.

That's a bad thing. Just making you retch in your mouth. Maybe it's an album name now that I think about it. Usable beef by the band, what? Jungle X-ray. So yeah, they eat a lot because they need to and... It's like fourth of July for them every day. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Two to three times their own weight in food. Yeah, and this is, we're talking about just on normal days. Can we talk a little bit about the migration and what their need to beef up then? I think we should. So they migrate like we talked about. They're not exactly sure what triggers that.

They think maybe they see the change in daylight like some other animals and birds do, or maybe just the fact that flowers, you know, what the flowers are doing, but... I think that that's the one, that's the big one because they can't go for more than a few hours without food. So they need to go where the plants are flowering. And I think they just kind of follow that.

And I guess they're always connected to that, those subtle changes in the flowering. Exactly. So during this migration, their heart beats about 1,200 and 60 times a minute. And they have to gain, because they're trekking, I mean, sometimes they're flying over the Gulf of Mexico

in one shot over the course of a few days. So they need to bulk up big time. They gain about 25 to 40% of their body weight before they start this migration. And if we're gonna do the human equivalent again for this, if you were a person that weighed 170 pounds, that means you'd have to gain up to about 255 in a few weeks time.

Right. It's like Christian Bale-esque. I know, in just a few weeks, man, that's crazy. So one of the things that's so impressive about the Hummingbird is just how far it can fly in a day, especially for how small it is, you know? They average something like 23 miles a day when they're migrating.

But the ruby-throated Hummingbird, the one that it's the only one that you'll find east of the Mississippi. So if you see a Hummingbird in your east of the Mississippi, you can be like a ornthologist for once in your life and be like, that's a ruby-throated Hummingbird. They actually can travel for extraordinarily long stretches and they do because their wintering grounds

are in the Yucatan, but they hang out in Florida during the other part of the year, I guess during the summer. And so they travel over the Gulf of Mexico, they think. And when they do that, they do it in like a straight 500 mile stretch within 18 to 22 hours without stopping. That's incredibly impressive.

It really is, but then there was a study in 2016 that found they could go even further, right? Yeah, they said physiologically, in theory, they could fly close to 1,400 miles without stopping if they needed to. That's crazy. That'd be like flying from Atlanta to Albuquerque. That's nuts.

If you want a reference, that means nothing to nobody. So if you're wondering when they rest, when they finally get down to that sweet soil in Mexico, they can enter Torpor, which we've talked about before. It is sort of hibernation light, really deep sleep like state. Their metabolic functions are really slowed. I think they can drop their body temperature

by 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. They lower that heart rate from about 1,200 beats per minute to as few as 50. And they do this after they migrate, but they can do this anytime they need to and they do. Yeah, they do. And also, I think it depends on where they live

because hummingbirds, like I said, a lot of them live in the Andes, like high up on the mountain side. And even in the summer, it can get kind of cool there. So when the temperature cools enough that it makes no sense for them to keep up their metabolic rate to try to meet their 105 degree Fahrenheit body temperature,

they'll enter Torpor and that's just what they do for sleep. And one of the other things that I want to point out about them living in the Andes, Chuck, this is all really just a segue for this amazing fact. They live in the Andes despite the fact, and there are some species that are native to the Andes, not just like migrating through, that's where they live as the Andes,

despite the fact that they have these high metabolic rates and they need more oxygen, well, there's just inherently less oxygen in the air up in the mountains. And it's harder to hover because the air is thinner and yet they are so successful there in the Andes that up above a certain line, there's no insects. And so it's up to the hummingbirds exclusively

to pollinate all the flowering plants up there. Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably why, like they have the market cornered up there. So they're like, all right, well, let's adapt so we can kind of own this area. And not only that, I don't think we mentioned that sometimes if you're a small enough hummingbird and there's a big enough insect,

the insect can win that battle. In hummingbirds world, the insect eats you. All right, Branson misery. Let's take a break. Okay, I figured that was gonna trigger a break. All right, we'll come back right now to talk more about hummingbirds. ["Hey Dude," by David Lashor, and Christine Taylor plays in bright rhythm.]

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lashor and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh.

Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye-bye-bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, Chuck, so we're talking more about hummingbirds. One of the things that I really feel like we just need to underscore here is that they are metabolic wonders. They live on this edge of survival, where they will die if they go a few hours without food. Like, do you know how many days you,

a human being, can go without food before you die, as long as you have water, and maybe access to a couple vitamins or whatever? I think we did a podcast on that at some point. I'm pretty sure we did. Yeah, Angus Barber or Barbier, I can't remember. They die within hours, so they constantly have to search for food sources.

Yeah, that's why you see them flitting about constantly. They're always looking for food. But it's also one of the reasons why they're known as potentially the most unsociable and most territorial bird in existence. Yeah, they don't like hanging out with each other. There are some exceptions that we're going to talk about, but they generally don't like hanging out together.

They don't like hanging out with other birds at the end of the day, when everyone's just sing-songing by the shoreline. Hummingbirds are like, no, screw you guys, I got to eat. And not only do I have to eat, I got to make little hummingbird pee eggs. And we talked about this courtship dive, we kind of teased it out.

This is pretty incredible. And this is one, a lot of times in mating rituals, you'll see the males doing these kind of big fancy shows to try. Do card tricks. Yeah, trying dogs playing poker, that was all about. My photographer was a female dog. That's right. And so you'll, or I guess it wasn't a photograph was,

it was probably a painting. No, I think about it. In Stuff You Should Know World, it was a photograph. But it was a tin type, so it was very old. It's strange. So it was funny, I was telling my daughter today about my bed, she always loves hearing stories about me and my brother as a kid. And I was telling her about my teenage bedroom,

and I was like, I'll show you a picture one day, I've got pictures. And she said, you had a phone when you were little? And I was like, oh boy, that's what it's like these days. She is so precious. And I had to explain that, you know, this phone, camera and a phone is kind of a new thing. Like they used to be two different pieces of equipment.

Yes, they were two very bulky different pieces of equipment. And a phone used to be attached to your wall in your kitchen. Oh yeah, that's true. But if you were, you know, super wealthy, you have one of those really, really long cords. You're going to say that because that's exactly the deal. So the courtship dive is when the male is trying to attract the female for a little lovin',

that will fly up in the air really high, about 50 or 60 feet, and then dive bomb toward the female as fast as it can go. And they are flying the whole way, they're not just, they don't tuck the wing back, and the wings back like you're parachuting or something. No, like they're flying as fast as they can right at this lady's face. And within inches of her head going full tilt, they just pull up real quick.

And they hit her in the arm twice and say two for flinching. They put on the brakes and she flies right by. But that's what they do is crazy. They fly right at their face and then stop. If the female gets a little turned on, she might flit about in the air with them. And then that's where people might think, oh, look at those two hummingbirds are up in the air having sex.

Not true. No, and maybe your mom would tell you that you need to leave the room because hummingbirds are doing it midair. But that's not what they're doing. They actually copulate, perch down a branch, not in midair. The female lands on the branch.

Sometimes, like you said, she'll join them in the air. Other times she'll just be like, come on down here, you win. Let's go. And the male mounts her from behind on the branch. And just like with everything else, the hummingbirds are super quick at sex too. Apparently it takes about four seconds and then that's it. Like wham bam, thank you, ma'am.

Yep. And the male flies away. He doesn't hang around and see if it took. He goes on to have sex with another female. And the lady goes like, what is this? A fern bar? Who are you, Jack Tripper? So she goes off and builds a nest

and does all the parenting. Like they don't mate for life. They don't even stick around after they mate at all. It's just they're in, they're out, they're gone. And I mean, you might think, well, that's a pretty big bummer. Poor female, poor lady hummingbirds. That's exactly how they want it. Because like we said, as the species is known as,

or all of the species, the hummingbird is known as the most territorial bird. So it seems, at least as far as natural selection is concerned, females prefer this arrangement. No parent printing or mating parent printing to where they just do all the work themselves. Because that means that they can also have their own access to their food source.

To where no matter what the male hummingbird is going to bring the table and say childbearing or whatever, it's not worth the food that this female would have to share. And that's where their territoriality comes from. Because remember, hummingbirds live on this edge of survival where if they go for hours without food, they will die. So they're really, really protective of their food source to the point where a female hummingbird

would preferably raise Yong on her own then share her food source with the male. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of cool actually. I get the picture that the female hummingbird is like, I need you for one thing. It takes four seconds and believe me, if I could go to a sperm bank, I would prefer that, honestly. I thought you were going to say believe me,

you're going to have the time of your life. But those four seconds will be a wild ride, my friend. That's right. Come meet me on the sprints over here, baby. It's going to be a, wait, it's going to be a stone gas, honey. Hey, babe, come here. So those gorgets that we were talking about, those really colorful, iridescent sort of fluffy chest

and neck feathers of the male, like with many animals, the more brightly colored and showy that is, the more the female might be attracted because that might indicate that male bird's fitness. Because you got to take a lot of work to keep that hairstyle up. So he must be pretty strong and have pretty good at organizing his day-to-day list to do. Effectively the exact same signals that Joe Dirt put out with his hair.

He was obviously very genetically fit and ready to go. I never saw that. You should. It's definitely, it's got a lot of heart. I think I say that every time you say you never saw it, but it's worth checking out for sure. It's one of those ones, you know, some don't age very well. I think it came poorly aged right out of the,

right out of the production facility. But that's one of the great beauties of it. It's definitely worth seeing, Chuck. Well, speaking of aged right out of the chute, that's kind of the deal with hummingbird babies too. I see. The mom doesn't, there's not a lot of teaching and like here, let me show you the ropes.

It's kind of like, all right, this is the world. You've been hatched from your little pea-sized egg. Now go out there and be a hummingbird. Learn it all on your own, kiddo. But what's amazing though is that they do learn this on their own. They have astounding memories to the point where when they migrate, people who put out feeders, which we'll talk about in a little bit, for hummingbirds, note that the same ones,

or what they believe is the same one, comes back year after year. And what's even more astounding, frequently on the same day of the year, the same date, the same hummingbird will come back year after year on his or her migration, right? And that they just understand this, they notice. And part of it, yes, is following flowers

and the blooming patterns of flowers. But they also think that they might have some sort of magnetic compass built in that possibly part of their pineal gland, which is light sensitive, is used, manages to use the sun as a compass. And that they have astounding memories somehow, some way, because apparently their brain is about the size of a grain of rice in most cases.

Yeah. And the other thing they'll do too, is if they have, speaking of coming back to the buffet, if they have a patch of flowers, let's say, on your property that they just love, they'll be like, all right, this is mine. I'm just going to go ahead and claim this. I'm going to come back here because you've got all the good stuff. My beak fits that flower just perfectly.

And we'll talk here in a minute more about what they eat and why. But they will fiercely protect that little patch of flowers that they love so much and go back to it time and time again. Yeah. So that's where their territoriality comes from, is protecting food sources. And not just food sources like, I've been growing this patch of flowers all summer, stay away. They could stop somewhere for a half of an hour or colloquially,

half hour, and will still protect that flower patch that they stopped by if somebody comes along and tries to get it. And the whole reason that they do this is because they eat nectar along with some other stuff. And it takes a really long time for a flower to produce nectar. So the hummingbird would love to just have to go to the flower once and get the full dose of nectar. But they can't just wait around

because other things will come and eat the nectar they've been hanging out for. So they've developed this secondary behavior, which is territoriality, to where they'll chase off other hummingbirds, they'll chase off other birds. They've been known to chase off hawks even if the hawk comes a little close for their comfort.

Yeah. And they'll, you know, I think early on in the hummingbird council of 1915, they said all the socialist hummingbirds got together and said, hey, if we all relax and just let that nectar build up, it'll be a lot easier to eat. And all the other, you know, the little, I'm not going to, I don't want to get political here, but there were some hummingbirds that were like, no,

amen, I'm not playing ball. I'm going to get in there and get that nectar whenever I feel like it. Right. And so the hummingbirds couldn't work it out. No. And the ones, the other ones that wouldn't go along with it, fired all the air traffic controlling hummingbirds. That's right. Yeah. I think we should take a break. I think so. Let's take a break and we'll, we'll finish up about what they eat and all about those little feeders

that you have in your backyard right after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so will my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast

and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, Chuck. So, um, everybody knows that hummingbirds eat nectar and that's definitely true and they're very well adapted to eat nectar. They have this tube like tongue that apparently uses a wicking action to soak up nectar from a flower on a plant.

And they do this, this tongue can actually carry a load of nectar into their mouths like 13 times a second. That's a lot. Super fast. Not that surprising that they're doing this super fast too, but it's still pretty impressive, but it's not just nectar. It's not the only thing that they eat. And actually people found out the hard way that they didn't just eat nectar

because captured hummingbirds who were studied in captivity died pretty quickly when all they were given was like a sugar water solution or even a nectar solution. And so they came to realize that they actually eat a lot of insects too. And that's one of the great things about hummingbirds. In addition to being pollinators, they're also really big at insect controls. And one of the insects that they eat are blood-sucking mosquitoes. Yeah, mosquitoes, little spiders. And this is in addition to, I don't think we mentioned, the 1,000 to 2,000 flower blossoms

that they will go poke every single day. So that's why, I mean, when we talk about these hummingbirds or food scavengers, up to 2,000 flowers a day, that's pretty intense. It really is. So that makes them very, very important pollinators. Like we said in the Andes where you're above the insect line, it's just up the hummingbirds to pollinate flowers. So when they're going from flower to flower, getting that nectar,

if you pretend that evolution is a living, breathing thing, evolution has created this arrangement where the flower produces a nectar treat in exchange or to attract the little hummingbird. And then when the hummingbird's getting its little nectar treat, the flower just kind of goes, here's a little pollen on your forehead. Go find another flower that looks like me and you'll find another nectar treat and then transfer this pollen while you do. So they pollinate a lot of important stuff and in addition to eating lots of bugs.

So they're just all around great animals. Yeah, and they love that nectar. If you're thinking about flowers in your own garden, if you want to attract some hummingbirds, they want a sugar content of about 26%. It can't be like a Wendy's Frosty because they're using that tongue, acts sort of like a straw. So you've got to get that spoon with the Frosty. You can't suck that thing up.

If you try, you're going to pass out in your car while you're driving. Your eyes will cross. So that sugar concentrate, it can't be too, too sticky because like I said, they're sucking that thing up. Oftentimes, you'll see red or orange petals or bracts, they're often long and tubular because that long tongue and beak can get in there when others can't. So that kind of gives them the market cornered on that particular flower. It keeps out posers.

It does. And this is the cool thing, those flowers that you see that sort of trumpet downward, you know, unless you can hover, you're out of luck there. So they love these things because they can hover. Yep. So there's a lot of actually, there's a lot of plants that have flowers that kind of fit this bill. And most hummingbirds aren't really fit the bill. Man, that was an unintentional one.

I guess fit the beak. They don't have bills. Like a gent, well, you know, ducks bill and ducks are birds, right? Sure. Right. So, but they're not super specialized. They'll eat just about anything that they can get nectar out of, but there are definitely kinds of flowers that are, have kind of co-evolved with hummingbirds

to kind of give them what they're looking for more easily. But one of the problems with human development, as with all things, is we kind of have supplanted a lot of those kinds of flowers. The good news is, if you have heard all this and you're like, I want to encourage hummingbirds to keep living, you can plant these flowers pretty easy. Yeah, I sent this list to Emily, actually, because we have, our garden is very, our garden is very much built for use, for use in Emily's budding interest in herbalism and use for the insects that we know and the birds that we know inhabit our area.

So, it's not just like, oh, that's pretty. Like we want it to be a real thing that works for our local environment. I can't remember who said it, but there's a famous quote that, nothing useless can ever truly be beautiful. Oh, interesting. And I've found that that is one of the truest things ever said. Nothing useless. Useless can ever truly be beautiful.

I think that broke my brain. What does that mean? It just means that usefulness, like the ability for something to have a purpose, is an important part of its existence. And so, just beauty alone doesn't justify the existence. Oh, okay. That's what I thought it was saying, but something felt like a double negative in there that kind of broke my brain a little bit.

You overthought it. I definitely think it. So, bee balm, the old trumpet creeper, which was Miles Davis' nickname for a little while. When he was drilling holes in bathroom wall. The cardinal flower, the Columbine, and the coral honeysuckle are all very hummingbird-friendly flowers and plants that you can put in your yard. And I sent that to Emily, and I think we have a couple of these. We used to have Columbine and Dope.

She's going to bring that back. And we're going to see if we can get some more hummingbird action in our backyard. That's awesome. Some hot, sticky hummingbird action. Four seconds of pleasure. So, you can also just go get yourself a hummingbird feeder. And a lot of people put red food dye in there, and that is actually a controversial move. There's some concern among hummingbird enthusiasts that the dye actually can be harmful over long

periods of time. Maybe it can build up, because again, hummingbirds have very tiny organs, because they're a very tiny bird. So, introducing this artificial red dye might not be the best idea. Other people say that's totally unsubstantiated. There's never been any proof that it actually harms hummingbirds. And then the other people say back, it's totally unnecessary. The bird's going to find the sugar water either way. So, why add the red dye just in case it is harmful if it's just unnecessary?

So, most hummingbird enthusiasts say, don't put red dye in your hummingbird sugar water. Yes, and that solution mixture is important. Don't just dump a bunch of syrup and water together or a bunch of sugarcane or whatever. It is four parts water to one part sugar, because they need a specific sugar content of about 26%, and that four to one makes about 25% if my math is correct. It does. It's close enough. Close enough. So, one of the other ways you can help hummingbirds too is in the most delicious way by choosing coffee that is grown in a situation that allows hummingbirds to thrive.

Yeah, this is, I didn't know about this. This is really cool. There is certified bird-friendly coffee, because we are talking about the Andes, and the fact that the birds travel great distances and elevations up and down these mountains. And coffee is grown about halfway up these tropical mountains, and they have a lot of great flowers under the shady canopy there, and it's a really nice home for hummingbirds there. And if you drink bird-friendly coffee, that means that they have these flowers, and they're making sure they take care of these flowers.

Right, and yeah, it's grown in kind of like a simulated forest as closely simulated as possible. So, you want to look for something that says it's bird-friendly, rainforest alliance, and or shade-grown, and that probably means that hummingbirds are thriving on those coffee plantations. And I went and looked, and my beloved Batdorf and Bronson coffees are all bird-friendly, and shade-grown, and I was very, oh yeah, I'm crazy for that stuff. I've got a great, great blend for you. Thank you. Trader Joe's decaf beans, half, and the other half Batdorf and Bronson whirling dervish. It's the most amazing combination ever.

Let's give that a shot. I'm not drinking coffee now because it's not winter, but Emily still has her latte every morning, and she just has their espresso beans. Coffee is a 365-day-a-year activity check. I know, not for me, but I get it. That's okay. I'm not going to yum your yuck. Very well done. So, that's it for hummingbirds, right? That's it.

Well, if you want to know more about hummingbirds, get one to land in your hand and study it up close and personal. But don't mess with it because it's protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 in the United States, and you could land in jail and pay up to a $200,000 fine for hummingbirds. Good. And since I said $200,000 fine, everybody, that means, of course, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to talk about the exploding birthmark. Hey, guys, big fan of the show, which I listened to while I'm cooking breakfast, doing laundry, and staring, oh boy, get this, and staring at 100,000 row Excel spreadsheets for work.

Man, my soul just shuttered. I know. I recently listened to the episode on birthmarks and thought you may like to hear the story of my birthmark that exploded. I was born with two birthmarks, both of which have since been removed. One of those birthmarks was dark brownish, red, and a circle on the inside of my right thigh. I didn't think much of it because it wasn't very visible. And like you said on the show, lots of people have birthmarks. However, when I was in the third grade, my family and I were about to leave for my aunt's house to celebrate Thanksgiving when I realized my pants kept sticking to my leg. Oh, man. I went to the bathroom and removed my pants and I saw

blood running down my leg as a third grader who had not yet even learned about menstruation. I assumed I was dying, so I freaked out. Turns out my birthmark was the result of a vascular malformation, the size of a small bouncy ball in my inner thigh. Oh my gosh. The tangled up ball of veins had ruptured that Thanksgiving morning and I had to go to the ER where they stuck a tiny piece of foam on my leg and probably charged just about $2,000 because hospitals. A few months later, I had it surgically removed but now I have a three inch long scar instead of a birthmark. But because of my surgery, I wasn't allowed to run for a few weeks and I got out of running the mile. So who's the winner now? Lucky. Thanks for helping me seem really knowledgeable on very

specific topics and that is from Bailey. Nice, Bailey. That was a great story. Pretty good. Bailey left out that ironically both the birthmark and the scar were in the shape of Satan. By the way, Bailey says in the PS that the other birthmark was a hemangioma on the bottom lip that was removed. Man, that's interesting stuff. Yeah, very interesting. And what was the fact that I kept saying over and over again about hemangiomas, that they're a tangled cluster of blood vessels? I don't think so. Okay. So maybe they were two of the same kind of birthmark. Maybe so. Well, thanks a lot, Bailey. And if you want to get in touch with us like Bailey did and share an amazing story, we're always up for those.

You can get in touch with us via email these days at stuffpodcast.ihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, hey dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple

Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.