Hummingbirds are known for their small size, beautiful iridescent feathers, incredible flying abilities, and propensity to fearlessly approach humans. While many bird species tend to be wary of people, hummingbirds seem to possess an innate curiosity and lack of fear when encountering humans. There are several potential explanations for why hummingbirds are so friendly and comfortable around people.
They Have Coevolved with Flowers
Hummingbirds have an intimate ecological relationship with flowers, relying on the nectar as their primary food source. Flowers, in turn, depend on hummingbirds for pollination. This coevolution over millions of years has shaped hummingbirds to be highly attracted to red tubular objects that resemble flower blossoms, even if they aren’t flowers. Since human-made feeders mimic flowers, hummingbirds naturally investigate them out of instinct. Their innate drive to seek nectar compels them to overcome shyness.
They Have High Metabolism
Hummingbirds have extremely high metabolic rates to support their frequent beating wings and hovering flight. Their hearts can beat up to 1,200 times per minute. To fuel their metabolisms, they need to consume their weight in nectar daily. This pressing nutritional requirement drives them to forage almost constantly. Hummingbirds can’t afford to be deterred by minimal threats and instead prioritize finding plentiful nectar sources. Since human feeders are a reliable source, hummingbirds focus on the reward rather than potential dangers.
They Don’t Perceive Humans as Threats
Unlike many bird species, hummingbirds have not faced major persecution from humans. Their small size, beauty, and vital pollination services have led to an almost universally positive perception among humans. Without an innate or learned fear of people, hummingbirds exhibit the friendly curiosity that is characteristic of their personality. They evolved in the Americas long before human contact and thus don’t register humans as predators. With no negative experiences associating humans with harm, hummingbirds freely interact with the people who provide them with food.
Unique Adaptations that Allow Friendly Behavior
Hummingbirds possess several key evolutionary adaptations that allow them to succeed in spite of their diminutive size while enabling their unusually friendly behavior around humans.
Agile Flight and Hovering Ability
Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards, hover in midair, and achieve the fastest wing-flapping of any bird species. Their specialized shoulder joints allow them to rotate wings in a full circle and precisely control angle and direction. This agile flight gives hummingbirds access to tubular flowers and ability to approach feeders from any direction without fear of crashing. Even as humans move around, hummingbirds can quickly adjust.
Needle-Like Bills to Access Nectar
Hummingbirds have narrow, pointed bills that are ideally shaped to reach into tubular flowers and lap up nectar. Their tongues even have fringed, forked tips perfectly suited for nectar-gathering. This adaptation allows hummingbirds to take advantage of human feeders and gives them evolutionary incentive to closely investigate any promising food source, overcoming shyness in favor of needed sustenance.
Tiny Sizes to Conserve Energy
Weighing only 2 to 20 grams, hummingbirds are the smallest birds. Their compact size enables maneuverability and is key to supporting their extreme metabolism. Small size also reduces total energy needs, allowing hummingbirds to survive on limited resources. This adaptation drives hummingbirds to fearlessly seek out any plentiful nectar supply, even in close proximity to humans. They conserve their energy by avoiding unnecessary exertion from fleeing while still easily accessing feeders.
High-Calorie Diet from Sugary Nectar
Hummingbirds are nectarivores that get most of their calories from sugary nectar. Nectar provides an optimal energy source to power hummingbirds’ busy metabolisms and active lifestyles. But nectar metabolizes quickly, compelling hummingbirds to constantly seek out plentiful nectar sources. This nutritional dependence is a powerful motivator to overcome any squandering behaviors like unnecessary wariness of humans who provide consistent, rich food. It’s adaptive for hummingbirds to focus on rewards rather than unlikely risks near people.
Minimal Energy Reserves
Hummingbirds have the highest metabolic rates of any vertebrate relative to their size. This means they burn through calories quickly with minimal energy reserves. Missing even a single meal could be life-threatening. There is an evolutionary advantage to prioritizing readily available food — even if it means interacting with humans — over caution. Given their high risk of starvation, it makes sense that hummingbirds evolved to be highly motivated foragers that ignore perceived threats.
Intelligent and Adaptable Behavior
Hummingbirds display intelligent behaviors that suggest an ability to rapidly adapt to changing environments. They have shown impressive memory and pattern recognition abilities in lab tests. Hummingbirds even creatively seek nectar, licking sap wells pecked by woodpeckers. Their behavioral flexibility allows them to learn that human feeders are an excellent nectar source and adapt bold foraging strategies. Intelligence helps explain their lack of ingrained fear.
Reasons Hummingbirds Are Attracted to Humans
Beyond their evolutionary adaptations, hummingbirds likely have some specific reasons they find humans attractive rather than frightening. Understanding why hummingbirds are so comfortable around people can help us support these special birds.
Associate Humans with Food Rewards
Like many animals, hummingbirds are capable of imprinting and associating food rewards with specific sights. When they regularly find nectar at human-provided feeders, they imprint on characteristics of people and learn to recognize us as food sources. Given their urgent energy needs, they are highly motivated to seek out these reliable human food providers. This positive association likely overrides any innate wariness.
Enjoy Interacting with Humans
Some research indicates that certain bird species, including hummingbirds, may enjoy interacting with humans independently of just obtaining food. Hummingbirds have exhibited an ability to recognize individual people. Their curiosity, playfulness, and desire for social stimulation may partially explain their friendly behavior beyond just getting fed. They may experience positive emotions from their interactions with people.
Attracted to Color Red
Hummingbirds have color vision tuned to see red especially well. Since nectar-rich flowers are often red, they have an instinctive attraction to that color. Red feeders and clothing grab hummingbirds’ attention and they investigate these cues seeking nectar. People exploit this preference by wearing red to lure hummingbirds close. This works precisely because hummingbirds are not deterred by human presence.
Attracted to Sweet Smells
Hummingbirds rely heavily on their senses of vision and smell to locate nectar sources. Just as fragrant flowers have evolved to attract pollinators, human-provided nectar emits sweet scents that appeal to hummingbirds’ senses. Even from afar, sweet smells signal a promising food opportunity worth inspecting up close. Their motivation for finding nectar makes them less hesitant to approach people.
See Humans as Harmless
Compared to many wildlife species, hummingbirds have not experienced much persecution from humans and lack an ingrained fear. Our species simply does not register as a serious threat. Hummingbirds have the evolutionary flexibility to adjust their behavior based on experience. Since they equate humans with positive rewards rather than harm, they see no reason for caution and exhibit comfortable friendliness instead.
Advantages of Interacting Closely with Humans
Hummingbirds receive several key benefits from their willingness to have close contact with human providers that likely reinforces their behavior over time through learning.
Access to a Reliable Food Source
Human-provided feeders offer a consistent and rich nectar supply without the work required to gather widely dispersed natural nectar from flowers. Hummingbirds readily learn to take advantage of this efficient food source. With high calorie needs and the risk of starvation, they benefit from prioritizing feeders over wariness.
Reduced Energy Expenditure
Interacting with humans allows hummingbirds to save energy since they don’t have to visit as many scattered flowers to meet their nutritional demands. Less flying reduces their metabolic costs. Getting food from convenient feeders enables hummingbirds to divert more energy to reproduction and survival. Their behavior evolves to take advantage of this efficiency.
Safe Places to Rest and Recharge
Many people put hummingbird feeders near trees or structures that offer good perches. Hummingbirds have learned that human spaces provide plenty of safe resting spots to pause between frequent feedings. This saves vital energy otherwise spent scanning for predators while perched or finding rare natural food supplies.
Shelter from Bad Weather
People often have overhangs, awnings, patios, or porches near their hummingbird feeders and plantings. Hummingbirds seek out these sheltered spots near humans that provide refuge from rain and wind. This protects their tiny bodies and enables them to save energy by avoiding battling elements.
Opportunities to Show Off
Hummingbird courtship displays are all about catching the attention of potential mates and dazzling them with agile flying skills. What better place to flaunt than where humans provide an attentive audience? By interacting near people, male hummingbirds can ward off rivals, impress females, and spread their genes.
Safe Spaces from Predators
Predatory birds tend to avoid areas of close human activity, creating relatively safer zones for hummingbirds near people. Bold hummingbirds have discovered that human spaces offer protection, which reinforces their affinity and allows them to spend more time eating than scanning for danger.
Feeding Hummingbirds Promotes Friendly Behavior
Providing hummingbird feeders, flower gardens, and other nectar sources encourages positive interactions with humans that reinforce hummingbirds’ naturally friendly tendencies.
Forms Positive Associations with People
When humans provide food rewards, hummingbirds learn to associate us with resources and remain comfortable in close proximity. This creates positive impressions that minimize fear and nurture their personality of approachability, shaping behavior through experience.
Helps Satisfy Their High Metabolisms
Supplemental feeding provides much-needed calories to fuel energetic hummingbirds and gives them more time and energy to socialize with people. Reliable food sources near humans promote frequent friendly visits.
Introduces Early Positive Interactions
Young hummingbirds imprint on their early experiences. Fledglings exposed to friendly interactions with humans feeding them gain a lifetime affinity. This shapes populations over generations to have innate trust toward people.
Attracts Them to Safe Spaces
Feeders entice hummingbirds to the protected areas around human homes and structures, keeping them returning to locations where they feel safe and learn we are not threats. Familiarity further breeds their comfort with us.
Brings Out Natural Curiosity
With hunger satisfied, hummingbirds have the luxury to relax and indulge their innate curiosity about humans. Regular feeding provides opportunities for us to captivate them, and their boldness and intelligence ensure they will seize the chance to explore us.
Rewards Their Friendly Tendencies
Since unafraid behavior leads to food rewards from human hands, hummingbirds learn their sociability earns them what they need. We essentially train hummingbirds over time to continue being the endearing birds we love interacting with.
Reinforces Habits over Generations
Young hummingbirds observe and learn from their mothers’ behavior at feeders. Rewarded friendliness gets passed down, ingraining comfort with humans into populations. Feeding stations near people ensure the next generation stays sociable.
Strategies for Safely Interacting with Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds’ lack of fear around humans provides special opportunities to have delightful personal encounters. Here are some tips to make the most of interactions while keeping hummingbirds’ wellbeing a priority:
Provide fresh nectar in clean feeders:
Regularly change sugar-water mixes and scrub feeders to prevent disease transmission. Quality feeders will bring hummingbirds eagerly to you.
Use red components:
Red promotes natural attraction. Have red on clothing, feeders, flowers, or porches to grab their attention from afar.
Sit quietly and wait:
Hummingbirds are bold, but moving suddenly can startle them. Stay still and let them come investigate you.
Have a mister handy:
A gentle spray of water attracts hummingbirds seeking baths and drinking on hot days.
Let them fly off if needed:
Never grab at or restrict flight, as capturing them can be traumatic. Allow them freedom while interacting.
Avoid sudden loud noises:
Loud sounds disturb their rest. Speak softly and move gently to sustain a calm environment.
Be aware of aggression:
Hummingbirds can show territorial aggression at feeders. Give chasers space.
Do not hand feed:
Feeding from hands puts hummingbirds at risk for biting and dependency. Only use proper feeders.
Photograph from a slight distance:
Get photos using telephoto lenses instead of phones right in their faces to minimize stress.
Appreciate their comfort with you:
Understanding why hummingbirds exhibit friendly behavior will deepen your gratitude and reward both species.
Conclusion
Hummingbirds are unique among birds for their willingness to closely interact with humans. Several key evolutionary adaptations like agile flying skills, needle-like bills, and rapid metabolisms allow hummingbirds to take advantage of people without fear. They associate humans with food rewards, find us engaging, and recognize our spaces as safe thanks to experiences over multiple generations. We can promote ongoing positive relations by continuing to provide nectar sources that attract hummingbirds to us and interacting gently in ways that leave them in control. Getting to personally connect with these special birds is a privilege we must not take for granted. By cherishing hummingbirds for the friendly companions they are, we humans receive the gift of joy from our little feathered friends.
