Hummingbirds are ethereal acrobatics that flit , slide , flit and fly atsuper fast speeds , their wings flapping up to 80 times per second and their heart hasten at 1,200 beats per mo . When feeding , they zip from heyday to flower , sipping sugary nectar and frighten off off again . This high - energy life-style requires lots of calorie , which signify they ask to toast their weight in nectar every twenty-four hours to survive .
Despite the amount of food for thought they waste , they count less than a Ni . How then do they stay erect in mid - air when wind wham their midget bodies and rain pelts their nimble wings ? That ’s exactly the question biological science professorRobert Dudleyand post - doctorial researcherVictor M. Ortegafrom the University of California - Berkeley asked in 2010 .
To figure it out , Dudley and Ortega place the hummingbird in a farting burrow at the UC BerkeleyAnimal Flight Laboratory . In this controlled environment , the researchers crank the wind speed to three , six and nine meter per 2nd ( 7 - 20 miles per hour ) . Since hummingbirds can flap their backstage 50 - 80 metre per second , high - speed camera captured their manic fender beat .
A hummingbird drinking from an artificial flower . Screen seizure from theKQED Deep Look Video .
The turbulence prove no problem for these aerialists , shifting their bodies to adapt to the changing air stream . By beating their flank backwards and forwards ( alternatively of up and down ) in a soma - eight trend , they contend to keep themselves static ; their tooshie acted like a rudder to keep steady when thump their flyspeck tongues inside an hokey flower .
However , the tough times were not over for these flying little birds . Next , the research worker simulated a rain too see how they would answer . undiscouraged , the hummingbird shook the piddle from their bodies and continued suck up their beverage of option . “ They shake their body like weenie while still flying,”said Ortega to KQED , “ but they do n’t drop off control . ”
To learn more , see aDeep Lookvideo by KQED San Francisco and present by PBS Digital Studios below :
