So, you may not know this about me, but I have a very normal, healthy, amazingly strong, rational fear of hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are evil. Seriously, if hummingbirds were six-feet tall, they would take over the planet. The zombie apocalypse does not scare me, it is the mutation of hummingbirds into anything big enough to take down a human. I am convinced they could take down a human now if they would just realize exactly how badass they really are in the grand scheme of things.
For example, their beak is as sharp as a needle. Are you telling me that if I stabbed you in the eye with a needle, it wouldn’t hurt? It might even kill you if it was long enough. Look at the hummingbird below, the sword-billed hummingbird.
That thing will reach your brain. Hey, it is called the sword-billed hummingbird for a reason. Deadly! I know what you’re thinking. Brett, you are crazy. That hummingbird could not get close to my eye even if it wanted. Really? Really? Really, Mr. I don’t know nothin’ about these deadly creatures? Let me break it down for you.
Fact: Hummingbirds can reach top speeds of up to 50 mph. In relative terms, that is over 350 body lengths per second. If they were six feet tall, they would be travelling over 1430 miles per hour, greater than the top speed of most fighter jets.
Fact: Hummingbirds can perform serious aerial maneuvers and can dive with such velocity and acceleration, they will pull up to 10 G’s. They do this without a suit or in a jet. They look at pilots and say, “You Wuss!”
Fact: Hummingbirds can beat their wings up to 80 times per second. That means they could bitch slap you almost 5,000 times in a minute.
Fact: Relative to body size, they have the largest brain of any bird. They will become big, they will rule us with their big brains.
Fact: They hear and see better than humans. They can see ultraviolet light. That’s like having X-ray vision. They are practically small Supermen.
Fact: Hummingbirds have a metabolism about 100 times that of an elephant. They can eat up to eight times their body weight. If a hummingbird weighed 200 pounds, they would need up to 1600 pounds of nectar to sustain itself. They will enslave us and make us churn out 1,000’s of pounds of nectar daily. We will have to each maintain an entire pool filled with sugar water to appease our new masters.
Fact: Hummingbird flight muscles make up about 30% of their body weight, compared to a paltry 5% for human pectoral muscles. Hummingbirds would like to Pump (clap) You Up!!!
Fact: And last, but certainly not least, hummingbirds are extremely aggressive. They would sooner kill you than look at you. They attack each other with reckless abandon. They have no moral compass, they are not into being nice, they have no need to know who you are or what you are about. They know one thing and one thing only, and that is to destroy anything that gets between them and their nectar. Have you watched a hummingbird feeder lately? Check out this video (My Hummer Feeder).
And you don’t know the half of it. This feeder is empty. BOOM!!! I just blew your mind.
Seconds after the video was taken, I refilled it with sugar water. Hey! Don’t look at me that way. You damn right I am feeding hummingbirds outside my cabin. I will be saved when the Hummer Apocalypse comes upon us. They will remember my skills at creating nectar. When everyone else is killed, I will be saved. It won’t be a great life, but at least I will be alive. It won’t be easy at first. Sugar water makes the hands sticky, but hey, with some nice kitchen gloves and the occasional cool night (hummingbirds metabolism is so high, they often have to enter torpor, a kind of hibernation, to survive the night), I see happy times ahead. For now, eat to your heart’s content, little sword carrying speed demons. If you become freakishly large, remember me and my never-ending flow of nectar. (Ooh! That sounded dirty. Forget I wrote that)
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You ever wonder, since the dawn of time, has any hummingbird ever been struck by lightning? I like to think that at least one has. I’m just sayin’ …
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