h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hummingbirds flap their wings from 70-200 times per *second*.

To get the energy for this, they eat eighteen times their own body weight every day.

This necessitates gathering the nectar from, on average, 1000 flowers.

They need to sit on their arses a bit more! Maybe if they didn't do all that flapping around 1000 flowers, they wouldn't *need* all that food and energy because they would be doing a damn sight less of this silly flapping carry on!

Bloody wee lunatics.

Cool old Guy spinning fast
"But then they would not be humming as in humming birds.

I must say I find their hum a little unsettling, as if something is grinding against it. "

True...and then again, they are so small they are probably afraid that if they sit still they will be mistaken for little Easter cake decorations.

Cool old Guy just checking a real bird
"Another problem, birds sit on a perch, that is they have their paws round it, not their bottom.

One of my parakeets is lying on her side in the cage, . "

They sound like rubber-band propelor airplanes when they dive-bomb you

What? We've a pair that nest in our cedar tree, and they like to bathe in the waterfall part of our fish pond/fountain/tiny-bath-tub-cemented-into-the-ground-in-our-yard.

If hummingbirds thought about themselves the way humans think about themselves, they would be anthropomorphized, wouldn't they? People have done the woprld a lot more harm than hummingbirds have done..

Sloths. Now *there's* an animal who knows what it's all about!

Yes, though: imagine how much we would have messed up the world if you took away laziness and gave us all the energy of hummingbirds. We're bad enough as it is!

Cool old Guy taking some time to formulate his statement
"*take away laziness

I think that is a state of mind. I go to many effort in selecting my waste (and as far as I know it is treated as to be recycled) however I will not concider anything I can reuse as waste. ('they' will classify that as hoarding) I even publically pick up rubber bands from the steet, test them and keep them if they can be used, throw them in a bin if not.

I 'consume' a lot of energy, even though I have replaced any lighting in the house with LEDs.

Any effort is limited to what you can do however at least do something. "

There's a frog that lives asleep underground for up to 30 years in the desert and only comes out when it rains. What a life!

Probably just comes up to complain about the weather. (the , I mean. In case someone has posted something else while my connection went pear-shaped there)

Laziness gets a bad rap, but sometimes it's wisdom in disguise. All too often, what you regret the most is things you did that weren't necessary.

If we had a like/favourite button at h2g2 (and I sort of hope we don't, but it would be handy sometimes), I'd favourite post 10

Either my imagination has gone on vacation, or there's something not quite right about a frog complaining about rainy weather. I would expect them to be more irate at dry weather.

The s aren't complaining about the rain. They're in love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbEig0QIPQ

Oh, and they couldn't get tickets to the heavy metal concert.