Every spring, Nootka Sound is inundated with Rufous Hummingbirds. They push North up the West Coast, following the path of freshly blossomed Salmonberry.  The Salmonberry’s pink blossoms are one of the earliest flowers to bloom, and serve as harbingers of the Hummingbirds’ arrival.

 

The Hummingbirds' annual migratory circuit has been honed by time to capitalize on peak wildflower blooms. They feed on the Pacific’s early-blooming Salmonberry (and other early bloomers like Arbutus and Currant) on their Northbound migration. Some will nest here in Nootka Sound, and spend the summer. Others end up as far as Alaska, further North than any other Hummingbird species. When those far-North breeders return South, many fly down the Rocky Mountains and adjacent lowlands, capitalizing on the later-blooming wildflowers there. Some fly as far South as Southern Mexico. 

 

Hummingbirds have such high metabolisms, and rely on such high octane-nutrition that they need to be very conscientious of energy expenditure, and have to 'refuel' at nectar sites frequently. Consequently, their hippocampi (a part of the brain used for memory and spatial navigation) are relatively huge, allowing them to remember many precise locations of nectar sites across the continent.

 

Their wings beat up to 70 times a second, and their hearts up to 20 times a second. They even perceive time at a different rate than humans - they process more ‘frames’ per second than us, effectively seeing things as slower than we do. (It's worth noting that time perception - measured in frames per second - is variable across all animals, and peaks apparently in Dragonflies, who seem to process information at a rate of about 300 frames per second. Humans can process about 30-60 frames per second).