Have you seen a hummer lately? Real beauties, aren’t they? No, I’m not talking about the new highfalutin vehicles driven by the rich and famous. I mean the real hummers. You know, the hummers that have been around since day five of Creation. With admirers from Alaska to New Zealand, this hummer is far more popular. Of course, I’m referring to God’s tiniest feathered creature, the hummingbird, nicknamed the “hummer” by those who study them.

Called the hummingbird because of the sound its wings make when flapping at an astounding 90 beats per second, this petite bird is truly one of God’s most delightfully designed works of wonder. Since the hummingbird is indigenous to the New World, Western civilization was unaware of its existence for most of history. In fact, Christopher Columbus was astonished at these miniscule but brilliantly colored birds, whose wings looked like a blur, darting from flower to flower and suddenly disappearing. God colored these birds with an iridescence that sparkles when the sunlight hits it but changes to a dull black in the shade. The hummer’s magnificent beauty is evident only when the sun reflects off its feathers, which exemplifies a beautiful picture of God’s glory: standing in the Light of His Truth versus hiding in the shadows of darkness.

Wonderful Wings
These amazing avian acrobats are unlike other birds. With their ability to hover indefinitely, fly backwards and from side to side, hummers are outfitted with wings that are able to rotate in a figure-eight pattern. They can quickly get from place to place and flower to flower in their race against time, for they must eat a tremendous amount simply to survive the night. Equipped with incredible vision, a hummer’s tiny eye can see a red flower up to three-quarters of a mile away! No wonder they can always find your well-placed feeder. They dart at lightening speed toward each red object in view, not wasting any time looking where there is no nectar. Have you ever heard that hummers are most often reported trapped in garages? It’s because the hummer zipped right over to the red string hanging down from the garage door opener and, after inspecting every other red object, couldn’t find its way out.

Sound Asleep
During a cold night, hummers don’t just sleep, they hibernate—every night! Because this bird uses more energy at rest than other birds use during flight, it must conserve energy while sleeping in order to survive through the night. This kind of deep sleep, called torpor, causes their entire body to slow down; their breathing slows down, their heartbeat drops from 1,000 beats per minute to 40 beats per minute, and their body temperature drops from 100 degrees to 60 degrees. We would die if that happened to us! Waking up from such a state requires the hummer to shiver for over an hour before it has the warmth it needs to begin its daily hunt for nectar.

Swiftly Sipping
Hummers are the only bird with a bristle- covered, pronged tongue that looks like a double-barreled drinking straw. When the hummingbird inserts its tongue into a flower, capillary action draws up the nectar as the bird laps the sweet juice at 13 licks per second. This uniquely designed tongue allows the bird to quickly and efficiently drink the amount of nectar needed—twice its weight—each day. Its long beak allows it to access nectarrich, tubular flowers and to snatch up any small insects inside these flowers, providing needed protein.

Leaving Town
In their intense effort to satisfy their need for nutrients, hummingbirds make the long winter migration to South and Central America in search of fresh flowers. That’s thousands of miles this insectsized creature must fly. Ruby-throated hummingbirds actually fly across the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to Central America. If they didn’t eat enough or fly at just the right speed to conserve energy, they would drown in the waters below. Thankfully, God created this bird to know exactly how much to eat and how fast to fly to make it the entire way across the Gulf.

Definite Design
The hummingbird convincingly points to our Creator God. Its design is so specialized that the hummer could survive only with every single feature working in perfect unison from the start. Without the incredible vision God gave it, including special sensitivity to the color red, it would otherwise forage long and hard without finding the nectar it needed. Hummingbirds defy evolutionary theory because the entire species would have simply become extinct long before its development. For example, while it was allegedly “evolving” its system of deep sleep to conserve energy during the night, it would have perished before the morning from depleted energy. Also, without each of its skillfully designed mechanisms working properly, this bird would have starved to death while it was attempting to “evolve” the necessary structures of whirling wings, spear-like bill, and rapid-lapping tongue that it needed to get enough food each day. Remember that the hummingbird needed a readymade tongue that could rapidly lap up its body weight daily and specially designed wings that would allow it to quickly move from flower to flower—sometimes visiting thousands in a day.

Moreover, if hummingbirds evolved rather than being designed from the beginning, how would this bird have survived the first winter before it learned to migrate and obtained the physical ability to fly across the Gulf of Mexico without drowning? If not for the hand of God in creation, giving the hummingbird the knowledge and instinct to know exactly what to do, this exquisite creature would not exist.

Over 300 different species of hummingbirds are known, each with a splendor all its own. Not surprisingly, most species are found near the equator. While we were visiting the mountains of Jamaica, we were able to lure hummingbirds (Jamaica’s national bird) to rest on our fingers for a sip of bottled sugar-water. The red-billed streamertail hummingbird in the picture at left has two long tail feathers that glorify God with their elegant beauty.

Creation Confirmation
One species of hummingbird that leaves us no doubt that God made the earth is called the Andean sword-billed hummingbird. It has a four-inch bill and an even longer tongue and is the only bird in the world that can pollinate a certain passionflower. Not surprisingly, this passionflower (Passiflora mixta) has a 4½ inch tube. No other hummingbird or creature can reach the nectar and the pollen hidden in its recesses. This highly complex flower could never survive without this particular pollinator, with its particularly long bill. If the sword-billed hummingbird did not exist, the plant could not produce a single seed. This passionflower contradicts a “natural selection” or “survival of the fittest” evolutionary development theory given that the flower’s features are so dependent on one very uniquely designed hummingbird species for the flower’s continued existence.

Hummingbird Haven
Seeing a hummingbird doesn’t have to be a rare and unusual event in your life. If you live in the New World, then you can create a hummingbird haven to attract these beautiful miracles from May through October—and even through the winter in warmer climates. The key is to plant their favorite flowering plants and to keep your feeders continually filled with 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. It is also a good idea to hang bright red artificial or real flowers in conspicuous places to lure the hummingbirds for a visit. It won’t take them long to find your feeder once they find your yard.

You should also hang feeders near a window so you can see them when they visit. However, also hang a few feeders in other areas, because once hummingbirds identify your yard as the place to be, the males will defend “their” claim to a feeder in violent wars with other hummers.

A Garden of Eden
A hummingbird garden has the additional advantage of becoming a butterfly garden as well. Planting the right flowering bushes and plants for your climate will ensure a yard speckled with God’s most charming creatures all summer long.

On the facing page is a list of plants that attract hummingbirds. Seek to fill your garden with plants that flower at different times so that nectar will be available all season. Perennials will come back year after year, while annuals are nice to use as a border or in potted plants around your garden.

Jeannie Fulbright is the author of Apologia Educational Ministry’s Exploring Creation with Astronomy, Exploring Creation with Botany, Exploring Creation with Zoology I, and Exploring Creation with Zoology II. She and her husband homeschool their four children. If you have any questions about hummingbirds or any other science topic, email her at jeannie@jeanniefulbright.com. She wishes to thank local hummingbird expert and homeschooling father Rusty Trump of www.gahummers.org for his input and advice on this article.