The surprising secrets of hummingbird flight Kristiina J. Hurme and Alejandro RicoGuevara
And the clock starts…
now.
Did you miss it?
It wasn’t some bug buzzing by
or a weird trick of the light.
You just saw a hummingbird perform
astonishing aerial acrobatics,
eat lunch in midair, pollinate a flower,
and then escape a threat upside down—
all in a matter of seconds.
So let’s slow down the action, and unpack
each step in this blazing-fast feast.
First up, their incredibly rapid flight.
Hummingbirds typically beat their wings
30 to 40 times per second,
creating the high-frequency hum
they’re named for.
To flap their wings at this speed,
hummingbirds have evolved
giant pectoral muscles
that comprise over a third
of some species’ bodyweight.
But the real secret to their fine-tuned
flight is all in the wrist.
Most birds only generate lift
on the downstroke of each flap,
while using the upward recovery stroke
to set up their next wing beat.
Hummingbirds however,
turn their wrists during the upstroke,
changing their wing’s angle to flap
in a figure 8 pattern
that continually generates lift
throughout their wingbeats.
Alongside their massive muscles,
this special lift-producing technique
allows hummingbirds to achieve
sustained hovering flight—
an aerial feat no other bird can perform.
Hovering lets hummingbirds slow
to a stop almost instantly
and assess scenarios in midair.
Then, they can take off in any direction,
reaching speeds faster than a fighter jet,
relative to the bird’s size.
And since they can beat each of their
wings at different speeds and angles,
the birds can perform
incredible spins and turns
all while flying backwards
or even upside down.
Of course, flying this way
can be exhausting.
Hovering is one of the most energy
intensive forms of movement
in the animal kingdom.
And relative to their body size,
hummingbirds have the highest
metabolic rates of all vertebrates.
This leads them to eat very frequently—
often consuming an average
of four meals an hour while flying.
Fortunately, their hovering lets them eat
at remarkable angles without perching,
consuming food that would otherwise
be impossible to reach.
Using their long slender bills,
they reach deep inside flowers
and pump out nectar
with their thin grooved tongues.
This sugary liquid is a hummingbird’s
most important energy source,
and a single bird consumes six times
its weight in nectar every day
over hundreds of small meals.
Each of these sugary snacks also
pollinates the flower being visited
with pollen left on the bird
from previous meals.
That’s just a rough idea of what
hummingbirds can do in several seconds.
But if we hang around a little longer,
we might see their aerial acrobatics
put to a more dangerous test.
Hummingbirds keep track of which flowers
they’ve recently drained,
as well as those they plan to drain next.
And each bird will fight ruthlessly
to defend this floral territory
from their only real competition:
other hummingbirds.
Using their spear-like bills
and blindingly fast flight,
dueling hummingbirds chase each other
through the air,
aggressively stabbing
and plucking feathers.
The bills of some species are specialized
for fighting,
with spiny tips, hooks,
or even saw-like serrations.
Some hummingbirds employ
these aerial fencing techniques
to chase off larger birds
like hawks and owls.
But the most extreme fights are between
male hummingbirds
competing for flowers and females.
Fortunately, these duels
are rarely deadly.
After 15 to 20 seconds, one bird
will typically surrender—
flying off to seek its breakfast
elsewhere.
After all this fighting, feeding,
and flying,
hummingbirds sometimes need
to sleep off the day’s events
in a mild form of hibernation
called torpor.
Their hearts— proportionally
the largest in the animal kingdom—
slow from 1,200 beats per minute
to a mere 50.
But when they wake up 4 to 7 hours later,
their lightning-fast metabolism
kicks back into gear.
With all this speed and strength,
it’s no wonder the Aztecs revered
these energetic birds
as agents of the god of war
Huitzilopotchli—
a reminder that immense power
can come in the smallest packages.