WFNK.COM

decades of fun

4800 BPM

Dance to that suckas!

I was recently camping in the Rockies and witnessed my first hummingbirds in person.

Amazing!



Of course I’d seen them in books my whole life. I’ve seen images. I don’t believe I ever saw one in the wild in Ohio.

To really experience a hummingbird I think you have to see them in the wild. You have to get buzzed by one at 30 MPH!

Yes they can fly 35 MPH. Yes they can hover at 0 MPH.

Some can even dive at speeds up to 70 MPH!



As we pulled into our campsite I noticed what I thought were bats, or maybe huge dragonflys, swooping under the cluster of trees by the fire ring.

I started to unload our gear and one buzzed my head at full-speed. I didn’t even have time to swat because it didn’t hover around me, just swoop by.

A few minutes later one hovered by my head and it’s tiny fast wings buzzed my hat. Did I say amazing yet?  It’s like a fictional bird from the Hunger Games or something. So fast, so tiny, so delicate, so capable.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

We even stopped at a store that had feeders setup out front and at least 40 hummingbirds feeding!  There’s nothing that moves like a hummingbird.

4800 BPM?

That’s how fast the fastest hummingbird wing flaps. Switch it to RPM and that’s like 4th gear in most cars.