Hummingbirds in the Krasnodar Territory: truth or fiction of local residents?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

Without a doubt, the hummingbird is familiar to every person in the world. Some of us have seen it on television, and some of us just stumbled upon the little miracle bird in a nature magazine. By the way, as part of the school curriculum in our country, this bird is studied as a kind of mysterious phenomenon of life that lives on the territory of the hot continents of the planet: South and North America, on the island of Cuba. Based on all this, we can unequivocally state that the bird is known everywhere, from small to large. A few years ago, information appeared in the press and on social networks that a hummingbird had been seen in the Krasnodar Territory of Russia. Is this so and how reliable is the fact that a tropical winged individual lives on the territory of our country, we will try to figure it out within the framework of today's material.

A couple of words about the bird

Hummingbird is the smallest bird the world has ever seen. Its dimensions do not exceed 5 cm, and the flight is very much like the fluttering of a butterfly. An ignorant person can distinguishA "baby" from a butterfly is not at all easy, therefore, when the news about the habitation of a hummingbird in the Krasnodar Territory leaked to the masses, many skeptics reacted to it very predictably: they did not believe it. But there is another quite worthy explanation for this reaction: hummingbirds live in tropical climatic zones, which are famous for their hot temperatures, both in the daytime and during the night almost constantly. Krasnodar, on the other hand, boasts high thermometer readings for only a few months of the year.

Resemblance to a butterfly

Hummingbird, although it is a bird, it does not eat worms at all, although small larvae are not alien to it. Basically, this baby drinks nectar from flowers, which makes it even more like butterflies. By the way, she does not land on a flower, but feasts on nectar thanks to her long beak, reminiscent of a mosquito's proboscis. It literally hangs in space, while creating the impression of absolute static, although the wings do not stop their frantic flapping for a second. Hawk hawk is a large butterfly that feeds on flower nectar in the same way as hummingbirds. In the Krasnodar Territory, such species of giant butterflies have been living for a long time and were noticed precisely at the time when the news of the appearance of hummingbirds in southern Russia spread. Although skeptics are sure that this is the hawk moth, and not a tropical bird.

Where does the wind blow from?

And now it's time to sort out the main issuearticles, namely to find out: “Are there hummingbirds in the Krasnodar Territory?”. By the way, almost 50 years ago hummingbirds (buffy) were seen in Chukotka and on the islands of Ratmanov and Wrangel. To begin with, it is worth telling about the cases that caused the heated debate related to this issue:

1. In 2011, a resident of the South of Russia recorded a short video on his mobile phone, where he allegedly captured a hummingbird collecting nectar from a flower. He signed the post on the social network: "Hummingbirds in the Krasnodar Territory." However, the video clearly shows that the hero of his video is none other than the aforementioned hawk moth. Of course, many understood that the author only wanted to attract potential users to increase views on his channel, and it’s not even worth talking about the veracity of the name here.
2. The second time, already in 2015, another man posted a similar video, but it really was a creature very similar to a hummingbird. It was after this post that doubts arose about the veracity of the statement. Many connoisseurs have stated that there are hummingbirds adapted to cool climates and that, they say, they are slightly larger than a five centimeter individual. They assured the public that a giant 20 cm in size could easily inhabit the territory of the Krasnodar Territory, referring to ocher individuals. However, scientists flatly rejected all these unconfirmed facts, inserting their categorical “no” into the discussion.

Conclusion

Despite the controversy and the fracture of public opinion, we can safely say that the hummingbird and the Krasnodaredge - concepts are mutually opposite and in the near future are unlikely to be able to go hand in hand. Although in times of global warming, the migration of small tropical birds is possible.