Nature's Helicopters

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NAT

COLOMBIA
	There it is!  A beautiful little bird with a metallic green or red throat, hovering in midair in the sunshine, wings beating so fast it sounds like a hum.
	Hummingbirds are one of nature's fascinating and beautiful creatures.  With their wings beating 38 to 78 times a second, they can hover virtually motionless and then dart off instantly in any direction.
	There are 350 species in the hummingbird family, and they live in the Western Hemisphere from southern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America, but most varieties live in the rain forests of Colombia and Ecuador where they can easily find the flower nectar and insects they consume in such huge amounts.
	Hummingbirds eat an average of half their body weight in sugar every day, and though they are small, some species migrate the 2,500 miles from Alaska to Central America every autumn and spring.