Broad-tailed hummingbird near Mt. Saintes in Boulder, Colorado

At generally 10 cm in length, and wearing a wingspan of around 12.8 cm, the broad-tailed hummingbird is considered a medium-sized part of the hummingbird family. (The littlest of these fast flappers is the 5-cm-long bee hummingbird. The biggest, in some cases surpassing 22 cm in length, is the mammoth hummingbird.) Like all its cousins, the broad-tailed hummingbird must expend a portion of nectar to fuel its humming wings.

These nectarivores offer assistance to fertilize plants and are significant to solid biological systems. Numerous blooms have advanced funnel-shaped sprouts particularly to draw in hummingbirds – huge creepy crawlies like bumblebees can't continuously crush into these tubular blooms. But hummingbirds can dive their long, contracted bills deep into the sprouts to discover the nectar that collects within the base and within the handle, they spread dust from blossom to blossom.