yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

How Hummingbirds Depend on Humans (In SlowMo) - Smarter Every Day 124


3m read
·Nov 3, 2024

Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. If you're like me, when you think of hummingbirds, you think of cute little animals that go around drinking out of flowers, and everything is happy and beautiful, right? Well, it's not. They're actually savage little beasts that will kill each other to get what they want, which is nectar.

This lady named Ramona called me from Grant, Alabama, and let me know that she has all these beautiful feeders set up in her backyard so she can take photos of hummingbirds any time she wants. It's awesome, but Ramona has thrown the supply and demand curves out of whack. It's a good thing because she's boosting the population, but they now depend on her.

So today on Smarter Every Day, we're gonna do what Ramona wants. We're gonna take the Phantom Miro and get some awesome slow motion of these hummingbirds interacting and fighting around the feeders. And then, see how much of a risk we can make them take, all on slow motion. You're getting Smarter Every Day.

[music]

The way these things work is pretty interesting because they have to have food at all times. It's like a supply on demand kind of need, right? So, hummingbirds defend a territory of about a quarter of an acre. Ramona has artificially boosted the supply in the local area, which means they can peacefully coexist as long as that supply is there, right? But what happens if we start to eliminate the supply?

So think about this ecosystem in terms of economics. You've got a set supply of food and a set demand, the number of birds you have to feed. What happens if we remove the food from the system? We should be able to drive up the price of that food, thereby increasing the amount of risk that the birds want to take in order to get to the food. That's exactly what we're gonna do.

We're gonna manipulate an ecosystem artificially in order to get awesome slow-mo footage. Let's do that right now. Let's get Smarter Every Day. No nutrients here.

[music]

[unintelligible]

[laughs] It works.

[music]

[laughter in background] Shoot, that's crazy!

[laughs] Alright, we're putting feeders back out. There you go.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Smarter Every Day. This was brought to you by Audible.com. So, if you want to support Smarter Every Day, go check out an audiobook on audible.com/smarter. The one I recommend since we're in Grant, Alabama, which is in Alabama, which is where Harper Lee is from, is called To Kill a Mockingbird.

She wrote one book; that's the only one she published, and she won a Pulitzer Prize for it. That's pretty awesome. Anyway, it's been banned in a lot of places because of the racism and there's some bad words and things like that, but it's a very good book, and it teaches things on multiple levels. So if you want to support Smarter Every Day, audible.com/smarter, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Thank you very much. Please subscribe if we earned it. Appreciate your time, and Ramona, thank you for your hummingbirds. Appreciate the use of your hummingbirds.

(Ramona) Thank you.

(Destin) Thank you so much.

More Articles

View All
How technology has impacted the private jet business 👀
Technology for us is a big piece of our presentation model. We have our huge video wall with an app, so we actually can take people through this whole process by educating people on how you select the airplane that best meets your needs, your requirements…
Socially efficient and inefficient outcomes
Let’s study the market for soda a little bit. So, we’re going to draw our traditional axes. So that is price, and that is quantity. We have seen our classic supply and demand curves. So, this could be our upward sloping supply curve. At a low price, not a…
BREAKING NEWS: President Donald Trump Signs His First Executive Orders At The Capitol
Great. We went to the helicopter. It was freezing. Sun is a little dece. Yeah, yes it is. So, what would you like us to do? Sign your official documents. Assume they’re going to be happy with these docs. Might be the tradition, sir. The first is 22 cabin…
The Face of the Revolution | Uncensored with Michael Ware
MICHAEL WARE (VOICEOVER): In Olympic boxing, Cuba is a heavyweight. The nation’s pride often rests upon success in the ring. Oh, my god. MICHAEL WARE (VOICEOVER): And few have known as much success as the man who has just walked in. What an honor to meet…
Understanding Evil | The Story of God
To understand why evil exists, we have to know where it comes from. Some faiths see it as an unseen force that pervades the entire world—demons that lurk in the darkness. For Christianity, it could be the Devil Himself. Or is evil something that comes fro…
What is Acid Rain? | National Geographic
What is acid rain? Acid rain is any form of precipitation with high levels of nitric and sulfuric acids. It can occur in the form of snow, fog, and even dry materials that settle to earth. Most acid rain is caused by human activities. When people burn fo…