When most people wish and dream of becoming birds, they fantasize about what it’s like to fly around and be carefree. While soaring through the sky is undoubtedly an amazing experience, being a bird is not always the easiest thing—particularly if you’re a hummingbird.
Hummingbirds, because of their size and behavior, face a whole range of threats we as humans never consider. To give you a better idea of the scary world hummingbirds face, I’ve compiled this short list of major threats to hummingbirds.
Weather
Whenever it starts to rain, we run for cover to escape the droplets so we don’t get wet. The experience of hummingbirds is quite different. A recent study, as covered in the New York Times, has found that hummingbirds can survive rainstorms by shifting their posture and speed. A drop of rain can be 38 percent of a hummingbird’s body weight. The water isn’t the only thing they have to worry about. High winds can push hummingbirds into objects or drown them.
There have also been some reports that excessive snow and freezing temperatures kill hummingbirds. Bad weather is a bad sign for hummingbirds.
Spiders
If you’ve ever walked into a spider web, it can be pretty annoying trying to get those sticky webs off. When you’re a small bird that flies into a web, it could spell your doom. Orb weaver spiders are apparently abundant on the Texas coast, according to Chron, and the huge yard-long webs entrap hummingbirds and other small birds.
In most cases, it takes the intervention of humans to save the trapped birds.
Birds
Even though all the birds seem to get along just fine at your hummingbird feeders, a big threat to birds is other birds. For example, the Tiny Hawk, which is found in Central and South America is known to prey on and devour hummingbirds. Other types of birds, like orioles and falcons, also feed on hummingbirds.
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Although I’ve never heard of a hummingbird getting killed by wasps, they are known to swarm around and bother hummingbirds, so they can get their nectar. If they were stung, I imagine it would be severe.
I no I get around thirteen different hummingbirds at my feeders and one time my garage door was open and I left and went to work and 1 hummingbird went into the garage and was stuck in between the window all day untill I got home so I had to figure out how to get him outta there before he would die from the heat and no drink so I had to take a dish towel and cover it and got him out gently and set him free he was very thirsty so garages are also danderous.I have a lot of pictures I’ve taken of my hummingbirds how can I post them on there to show.they are so beautiful the hummingbirds.can someone tell me how to go about it.
I also see them fighting for their nectar at their feeders, bees and wasps try to attack them all the time. i’ve often wondered if they could get stung by wasps or bees if it would kill them or injure them severely. imagine a human getting stung by a hornet or wasp the size of a baseball,it’d probably kill a human.