Fraguela waits for the hummingbirds in the park of her house, in the mornings and at the end of the afternoons / the day
In the neighborhood it is known as “the house of the hummingbirds” and it owes its name to the postcard of sunrises and sunsets when, with an inexorable routine, those moving little birds come out of the trees in the area and visit the home of the Fraguela family. , where several drinking fountains with water and sugar await them, a delicacy for the small birds that fill the garden located in the downtown area of Ensenada with life and color.
The characteristic of these specimens, so showy and famous for anticipating good omens, is their slight fluttering of wings and the scenes they usually star in: it is impossible not to stop and observe when they stop in front of a flowering plant to feed.
Fascinated with the natural spectacle, the owner of the house, Juan Maximino Fraguela, awaits them every day with the six recharged drinking fountains that he has in the park of his house to receive visitors.
In the harmonic choreography in which numerous hummingbirds participate, many times, as special guests, a good number of bees “sneak in”, another species that is attracted by the sweet smell emanating from the drinkers. “They invade them and they don’t let the hummingbirds feed,” says the neighbor, more enthusiastic than disgusted by this intrusion that, in short, adds another detail to the charm of nature.
Juan Maximino takes care of the hummingbirds almost as much as he does his poodle “Toto”, because he not only prepares sweetened water for them but also helps them in cases where an accident puts them at risk, like the time he rescued a chick that had trapped in the sticky fabric of a large spider web.
Being a host to that kind of bird made him an ornithologist by vocation; This way the neighbor knows the exact hours in which the hummingbirds leave the high branches or the nests, after each long night and each long day without feeding, and go quickly to the drinking fountains.
It also knows about other habits and behaviors, such as the way in which it builds its nests, also with its particularity, since it does so with branches or feathers that it joins with the tongue.
Hummingbirds -as they are also called- emit a buzz with their wings, which can beat up to 80 times per second; and in mating season, this rate is accelerated to 200 times per second as a form of courtship for females.
It is a key animal in the ecosystem, since the hummingbird’s diet consists mainly of tree sap, nectar and pollen from flowers; hence it is among the main pollinating species.
Thus, its role is key in ecology, since it intervenes in the conservation of the flora: when they release pollen from the corollas, they usually pick it up with their heads to take it to other flowers and pollinate at the same time that they feed.
other curiosities
Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly in all directions. On the other hand, it is a species that cannot emit vocalizations, but it usually chirps as a form of communication. Like many other birds, they conserve some of their energy by slowing down their metabolism, to about 1/15th of the normal rate.
There are 343 species of hummingbirds on the planet.
