Observing the living creatures around us
Jemyla bell
AIU Online
Biology IP.1

Question

When taking a hike, you notice that a ruby-throated hummingbird seems interested in your red hat. It hovers over the hat and then darts away.
Do ruby-throated hummingbirds prefer some colors more than others when visiting flowers?

Observing the living creatures around us

There is a saying that ruby-throated hummingbirds are attracted to preferred colors curiosity struck me when I noticed the hummingbird taking interest in my red hat, very interested in knowing the truth for myself I decided to conduct an experiment to find out whether ruby-throated hummingbirds are attracted to some colors more than others. According to (Suarez & Gass, 2002) she believe that ruby-throated hummingbirds may be attracted to some colors like red. I then decided to test the theory for myself by measuring the time and frequency of the hummingbird’s attraction by testing a series of colors. By doing this experiment it should reveal rather the ruby- throated hummingbird is attracted to red or a series of colors.

Hypothesis

I predict that ruby-throated hummingbirds will be attracted to the red color more verses the others Colors. Prediction: During this experiment I expect to obtain accurate results based on the use of my experimental method to find out if the ruby-throated hummingbird is more attracted to red verses other colors. I expect to prove that bright colors like red attract ruby-throated hummingbirds more than other colors, like blue, purple and green. By proving this, my hypothesis should be right.

The first thing I did in my experiment was tested the impact that different colors had on the ruby-throated hummingbirds, versus the impact red had on them. By doing this, I used flower pots with sticks sticking out of the soil with strips of different colors attached to them. I then placed the soiled filled pots at an equal distance from each other to calculate my prediction correctly. My thought were that if ruby-throated hummingbirds are really attracted to some colors like red more than other colors that they would fly to the sticks with the red colors more frequently and spend most of their time there. I observed their behavior and made notes including the time they spent on each red colored stick verses the other colored stick. I made sure to use a timer to measure the time exactly right. I then placed four cameras which shot the area and captured the behavior of ruby-throated hummingbird so I could compare my results with the information from video records. On comparing the results, I could make a definite conclusion concerning the effect that red has on the hummingbird verses the other colors.

Results

After carefully reviewing the data collected in my research the results of the experiment revealed that the color red does attract ruby-throated hummingbirds more than other less bright colors. During this 2 week observations, I noticed that the hummingbirds spent about 28% of their time on the sticks with out the red strip. Where 72% of time spent was on the red striped stick. notes as well as Video records helped me to prove my findings and made the results of my study more reliable.
Conclusion

During my experiment it was proven that ruby-throated hummingbirds are defiantly more interested in the color red more than other less brighter colors, making my Hypothesis true.

References:
Bakken, B. H., McWhorter, T. J., Tsahar, E., Martinez del Rio, C. (2004). “Hummingbirds arrest their kidneys at night: diel variation in glomerular filtration rate in Selasphorus platycercus”. The Journal of Experimental Biology. 207: 4383–4391.