Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight (Wildlife) [Paperback]

Connie Toops (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998 | Series: Wildlife

Prominent in myth and legend, the hummingbird is revered for its jewel-like colors and legendary aeronautical skills: it can speed as fast as thirty miles an hour, fly straight up, sideways or backwards, or even hover like a helicopter. Some say the 319 species of hummingbirds that range over South and North America are more highly evolved than any other birds. Without question, theirs is a fascinating natural history.

Photojournalist Toops details that history with a lively discussion of courtship, nesting, and territorial and migratory behaviors. In particular, she emphasizes eight species of hummingbirds seen regularly in the United States.

Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight includes chapters on landscaping to attract hummingbirds, practical suggestions for selecting and maintaining feeders, and the best locales to find hummingbirds. In addition, a section of hummingbird legends is included.

Along with more than 100 dazzling full-color photos, Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight offers: (delightful details about the most frequently-seen hummingbirds in the U.S. (expert advice on attracting hummingbirds with feeders and special garden plantings ("hotspots" for viewing hummingbirds in your area (the "why" and "how" of their courtship, nesting, territorial, and migratory behaviors

Also recommended: Bluebirds Forever, Owls, Love of Loons, Eagles: Masters of the Sky.

A freelance photojournalist, Connie Toops has taken photos that have appeared in Audubon and Sierra Club calendars and books published by National Geographic, Sierra Club, Reader's Digest, Time-Life, and Voyageur Press. She has written nine nature books, including four other Voyageur Press titles: Bluebirds Forever, The Florida Everglades, Owls, and Great Smoky Mountains. Connie and her husband Pat make their home in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where they have converted a suburban half-acre into a mini wildlife refuge.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

They can fly backwards, sideways, straight up and can hover like helicopters with an able maneuverability due to feather arrangement, internal wing structure and powerful flight muscles. Photojournalist Toops ( Great Smoky Mountains ) illustrates her comprehensive natural history of the hummingbird with 100 dazzling color photographs. Hummers are found only in the Western Hemisphere, with 21 species (of a total of more than 300) in North America. They live about five years, and their young leave the nest at three weeks of age; hummingbirds pollinate some 100 types of flowers (preferring red ones). Tracing the fall migration of a rubythroat from New York to Central America, Toops also reports on her own viewing in southeast Arizona, location of the largest concentration of hummers. She includes a discussion of artificial feeders and advice on landscaping to attract the birds, with lists of plants for each section of the country that will be welcomed by birders and gardeners alike.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"...a truly beautiful book. Toops offers readers her personal perspective on our most exciting birds while presenting scientifically accurate information." -- Nature Society News

"...dazzling color photographs . . . will be welcomed by birders. . . ." -- Publishers Weekly

"Astonishing full-color photographs." -- Science News

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Voyageur Press (MN) (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896583821
• ISBN-13: 978-0896583825
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #763,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reference of the life of hummer, great phots, September 5, 1999

By 

Angel Lee "Liocorno Amethyst Moonstone" (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight (Wildlife) (Paperback)

This is an essential reference on the life of hummingbirds. Over 100 beautiful color photos show many species of these elegant birds eating, resting, & in mid-flight.

The book starts out with the author's personal experiences with hummingbirds. It then explains the birds' history, classification, distribution, & habitat, comparing the various types of hummingbirds. How they fly, what & how they eat, mating rituals & nest building are then detailed. Conservation, migration, tracking, & banding are covered as well. There even a whole section on hummingbird meccas.

Finally, the book gives tips on how to attract the birds. Types of plants that attract hummingbirds are listed for 6 different regions, with both common & Latin names. The bird types native to each region are also given.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Answered all my hummingbird questions-and then some!, September 6, 2006

By 

Sammy Madison (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight (Wildlife) (Paperback)

With it's beautiful, extremely close-up color photos, this book about hummingbirds looks like a coffee table book. But I was very surprised and pleased upon reading the text that this is really a very serious book that will answer literally any hummingbird question you might have. Some of the questions I had about hummingbirds were: do hummingbirds eat anything but nectar? why do we only have ruby-throated hummingbirds east of the Rocky Mountains? how old do hummingbirds live to be? do all hummingbirds migrate? do male hummingbirds aid in raising the babies? do they migrate in flocks? Not only are all these questions and many more answered, there was a chapter about migration that started with a baby hummingbird born in northern New York state, and followed him to his winter home in Argentina. I was amazed at how quickly the tiny bird could make it from NY to VA, and then, the suspense of how he could possibly fly across the Gulf of Mexico- obviously no place to rest, and no food available. If, like me, you have had long unanswered questions about hummingbirds, this is the ideal book. I would think it would be great to read parts of this book and look at the beautiful pictures with older children, too.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing Micro Birds, July 25, 2010

By 

Lightman (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight (Hardcover)

Everything about hummingbirds is astonishing and amazing. This excellent book provides an overview of the intricacy and wonder of these remarkable creatures.

Attractively designed and filled with gorgeous color plates, Jewels in Flight invites casual flipping through its pages. However, delving into the text is where the real rewards lie, as the reader is treated to many almost unbelievable facts of hummer natural history.

Here is a smattering of what we learn:

* During courtship a hummer's heart may race to 20 beats per second.

* Hummingbird wings, which flex at the shoulder and rotate through 180 degrees, move through a complete cycle in 1/500 of a second.

* In the course of crossing the Gulf of Mexico during its migration a ruby throated hummingbird will beat its wings over four million times without stopping.

* Hummingbird eggs are tiny averaging less than .02 ounce. Nevertheless in relative terms this is very large, representing 2 to 4 % of the adult's body weight. In human terms, this would compare to a 130 pound mother giving birth to a 20 pound child.

* Some hummingbird feathers are modified to produce particular sounds in addition to color and flight characteristics.

And on and on and on.

It makes for an utterly fascinating read.

Highly recommended.