World’s Largest Hummingbird Finally Gets Some Respect

8 times bigger than hummers in your backyard, these relative “giants” thrive at 14,000 feet. But that’s not what surprised ornithologists.

The giant hummingbird of South America, and a standard-sized nectar feeder. Credit: © Xiaoni Xu | Macaulay Library | Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Used with permission.

Few moments have proven more delightful than the time a tiny hummingbird decided to check me out, hovering at arm’s length in front of my face for what must’ve been several seconds, an eye-to-eye encounter, before it zipped off to the neighbor’s yard faster than the Roadrunner says meep meep.

That’s not as unusual as I imagined.

“They’re pretty curious, and are attracted to bright colors (reds, pinks, etc.), so will sometimes zoom in to see what’s going on,” said Jessie Williamson, PhD, an expert in bird migration and high-altitude biology at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “I once had a feeder-habituated hummingbird try to sip nectar from inside my nose!”

There are more than 300 species of hummingbirds, and they are all amazing. Mostly because they’re the only bird capable of stationary hovering, partly because they’re so quick and fast, and also largely because they are tiny.

Well… Usually they are tiny.

I might’ve been a wee bit frightened if that staring contest had been with a Patagona chaski…