The following matters puzzle me about nature.

Horses

During the time of the Wild West, the major cause of transportation was horses. They fed on GRASS. YET they pulled the HEAVY LOADS for many miles of covered wagons and stagecoaches. The Pony Express had horses that RAN for MILES without stopping.

Also in history, there were war horses.

HOW can ANY horse.get so much energy from just grass?

The efficiency of that turning grass into energy just staggers me.

Hummingbirds

Some hummingbirds migrate and that is totally amazing all by itself. BUT many species do not.

It seems that for that tiny body needs plenty of nectar to fly so fast in the spring. During those months there are lots of flowers. YET for much of the year, there are zero flowers in much of the world. SO what do they eat? They do not have a beehive with stores of honey or lots of fat like a bear.

Do they hibernate?

How can they survive hibernation during a harsh winter storm without a cave, burrow, or fat?

Trees

This time of year is spring. During a just FEW weeks, there are various trees that SUDDENLY grow thousands of leaves. They had been totally bare for the winter.

HOW can they QUICKLY manufacture so much biomass?

Then on a related note HOW do they not lose most of their leaves to the winds? I am amazed that the brand new tender shoots can survive LOTS of winds and gusts.

Even when the fall comes and they turn brown they stay on during high winds during bad rain storms. So what keeps they connected? Yet during the fall on calm days, some trees SUDDENLY drop many leaves. Why?

Mountain Goats and Orax are super efficient LARGE mammals that amaze me.

Consider the photos and videos of mountain goats and Orax.

These are LARGE mammals. They are not TINY mice. SO logically it takes much energy to move and otherwise survive. BUT notice the settings.

Mountain goats are surrounded by ROCKS on STEEP hills. And there is plenty of COLD weather.

Orax and other antelopes like them are often in deserts or wildernesses of the Middle East. Where do they find enough water?

Where are the sources of enough vegetation to support such large body mass?

How can they make it in such cold and hot settings?

Note that there are deer, moose, buffalo, wildebeests, zebra, and more that MUST move around in settings with LOTS of green plants.

I am AMAZED that these LARGE animals can prosper with such scarce food and water sources.

Loner trees in super harsh settings

There are some photos of large trees in settings that make no sense. This includes rocky coastlines, barren deserts, high in the mountains, etc. YET there are ZERO other plants near there.

HOW could that tree find enough good soil is such a hostile setting?

Pigeons in cities fly often and surely that costs energy.

In a busy downtown district that are many hundreds of pigeons. There are nearly zero plants. I see some of them pecking at fast food and other liter.

These are not small sparrows. It must require intake of food to fuel such an animal. Then what drives me crazy is that several times an hour they might just leap up with a group of other pigeons to go round and round. That flight costs energy. It seems meaningless. There are not enough people in the parks and bus stops to offer scraps to sustain joy rides.

Another pigeon mystery is that I have never seen a pigeon nest and rarely seen a pigeon that was less than large. They perch in odd spots all over downtown where I worked and lived for years.

Insects must be super breeders.

The books say that many kinds of birds eat their weight in insects daily.

WOW, how can the insects supply that massive demand all year long?

How many POUNDS of insects are consumed in a suburban zip code during a week?

And how many birds depend on eating those insects to stay alive?

Yet in a rural, prairie, or forest setting I understand there could be plenty of bugs.

But there are many square miles of suburban neighborhoods. While the lawns and gardens have some bugs yet the roofs and streets have none.