Hummingbirds are beautiful, exciting birds to watch, and the sight of their small, bright bodies, rapidly beating wings, and elegant beaks is a common one around flower beds and feeders. In fact, it’s probably hard for you to picture a hummingbird at rest, and you may never have seen one that wasn’t busily hovering and flitting around. So that begs the question, where do hummingbirds go at night?
Where do hummingbirds go at night?
Hummingbirds find warm, sheltered spots in trees to spend the night. Usually this means somewhere deep in the leaves and branches so they’re as protected as possible from the weather.
Hummingbirds use up a lot of energy during the day. They’re constantly in flight, even hovering while they eat, so they definitely need a good, restful night’s sleep. The challenge is that they’re so small, even mildly cool weather could drop their body temperature enough to kill them. When hummingbirds are preparing for the night, they look for sheltered spots on tree branches, and then they go into a state of torpor.
This isn’t just sleep- it’s actually a form of hibernation. Their metabolism slows down and their body temperature drops, which helps to conserve energy as well as enabling them to survive cooler temperatures. To give you an idea of how much their metabolism slows, a hummingbird’s heart beats 1200 times a minute when they’re awake. In torpor, it beats just 50 times a minute.
They cling to their branch (or sit in their nest), retract their neck and fluff their feathers out. They might even hang upside down from the branch, like a bat. It can take them up to an hour to fully wake up from this state.
Do hummingbirds fly at night?
Sometimes, yes. In warmer weather some hummingbirds may feed for a while after the sun sets, especially if there’s artificial lighting in the area. This isn’t typical behavior, though, and more often than not hummingbirds will start to settle in for the night about thirty minutes before sundown.
The one big exception to that rule is migration season. When hummingbirds are migrating it can be common for them to fly at night. Some species that migrate over the Gulf of Mexico have no other choice- it’s a 500 mile flight over the open ocean with no place to rest, and they’ll often leave at dusk. It’s a 20-hour flight for them, so a good chunk of that is done in the dark.
Do hummingbirds leave their nest at night?
No, once the female hummingbird has lain her eggs, she incubates them all night long and then throughout most of the day. Remember, adult hummingbirds are very susceptible to cold because of their small size; this is doubly true for the eggs and chicks. In fact, even during the day, the mother will only leave for brief feeding trips.
If you see an empty hummingbird nest, it’s likely that the chicks have already matured enough to leave the nest. In fact, they typically leave the nest just three weeks after hatching.