Humming(bird) Your Favorite Song
This one may get stuck in your head.
Howdy! It’s Joey, back with Fun Fact Friyay. Today, the bird is the word.
A group of hummingbirds can be called six different names: a charm, bouquet, shimmer, glittering, hover, or tune.
As humans, we get the short end of the stick in terms of large quantities of us. A group of people? A bunch of pals? A coterie of homo sapiens? They’re all…fine, but not as cool as other species.
Birds, for instance, have a phenomenal collection of descriptors. An earlier edition of Fun Fact Friyay explored flamingoes. A group of them is called a flamboyance.
“I’m frolicking with a flamboyance of flamingoes, Felipe!” you might say to your friend Felipe (or to someone not named Felipe, if you want to confuse them).
Hummingbirds apparently cannot get their stories straight, because they come with MANY names.
“Charm” is the most common, which is a bit ironic, since hummingbirds are not always so charming. When they’re feeding on nectar or insects, they might become aggressive towards other hummingbirds (or humans) who get in their way. I suppose that’s no different than being hangry, though.
Hummingbirds tend to have a lot of energy and can come in a vibrance of colors, so “bouquet” is another frequent term for them. I just hope no one is throwing a bouquet of hummingbirds at a wedding.
The “glittering” and “shimmering” monikers come from hummingbirds’ iridescent feathers. The sun glitters and shimmers off of them, and they look super cool. “Hover” is used less frequently and is likely a nod to the birds flittering while feeding, as if they’re hovering.
Finally, a “tune” is probably the least common group name, largely because if you wrote “a tune of hummingbirds,” people would just expect that to be followed by some sweet music. And yes, some hummingbirds do actually produce tunes!
There are over 300 species of hummingbirds across North, Central, and South America (Quito, Ecuador is an excellent hotspot for sightseeing). The birds are pretty territorial and often prefer rolling solo. But if you happen to see a group of them nearby—perhaps all going after treats from a bird feeder—it’s nice to know you have five different options for what to yell.