What Happens When You Put a Hummingbird in a Wind Tunnel? - Deep look

Scientists have used a high-speed camera to film hummingbirds' aerial acrobatics at 1000 frames per second. They can see, frame by frame, how neither wind nor rain stop these tiniest of birds from fueling up. DEEP LOOK: a new ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Get a new perspective on our place in the universe and meet extraordinary new friends. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small. How do hummingbirds eat? With spring in full bloom, hummingbirds can be spotted flitting from flower to flower and lapping up the sugary nectar inside. These tiniest of birds have the highest metabolism of any warm-blooded animal, requiring them to consume their own body weight in nectar each day to survive. By comparison, if a 150-pound human had the metabolism of a hummingbird, he or she would need to consume the caloric equivalent of more than 300 hamburgers a day. But it's not just an extreme appetite that sets hummingbirds apart from other birds. These avian acrobats are the only birds that can fly sideways, backwards and hover for long stretches of time. In fact, hovering is essential to hummingbirds' survival since they have to keep their long, thin beaks as steady as a surgeon's scalpel while probing flowers for nectar. How do Hummingbirds fly? Hummingbirds don't just hover to feed when the weather is nice. They have to keep hovering and feeding even if it's windy or raining, a remarkable feat considering most of these birds weigh less than a nickel. More great Deep Look episodes: Newt Sex: Buff Males! Writhing Females! Cannibalism! ****** Pygmy Seahorses: Masters of Camouflage ****** Banana Slugs: Secret of the Slime ****** -- See also another great video from the PBS Digital Studios! Where Do Birds Go In Winter? - It's Okay to be Smart ****** Read the extended article on how hummingbirds hover at KQED Science: ****** SUBSCRIBE: ****** KQED Science: ****** Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Deep Look is a project of KQED Science, which is supported by HopeLab, The David B. Gold Foundation; S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation; The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation; The Vadasz Family Foundation; Smart Family Foundation and the members of KQED.

Hummingbirds are ravenous. These tiniest of birds have the highest metabolism of any warm blooded animal. And they’re fueled by flower nectar. To get it, they’ve developed skills no other birds have. They can fly backwards and hover for long stretches of time. Their beaks stay steady like a surgeon’s scalpel, but their wings beat furiously, up to 80 times a second. And they can hover in wind. In rain even. Most of these birds weigh less than a nickel. You’d think they’d get blown away. So how do they pull it off? Scientists at UC Berkeley brought hummingbirds into the lab for a closer view. First, the wild birds had to be trained, one at a time, to feed from an artificial flower filled with sugar water. Hummingbird wings buzz like helicopter blades - too fast for the naked eye to see. But by recording them with a high-speed camera – at 1000 frames a second -- scientists can see the individual wing movements. They can actually see how hovering works. Most birds flap their wings up and down to fly. But hummingbirds move their wings backward and forward in a figure eight movement, like oars. This generates lift during the upstroke and the downstroke, which helps hummingbirds stay stable, instead of bobbing up and down. But how would a hummingbird respond when the weather gets rough? To find out, the scientists moved the hummingbird into a wind tunnel and began recording. The wind is coming from the right side of t he cage – up to 20 miles per hour. The hummingbird must fly into the wind to get the sugar water. This high-speed footage shows how it turns and twists its body in the direction of the air flow, while using its wings for control and its tail like a rudder to stay steady. Even rain can’t stop the hummingbird from feeding. See how the bird shakes off drops of water from its body, like a wet dog? The birds can’t afford not to eat. They have to consume their weight in nectar every day to survive. And the flowers need them too. As they eat, hummingbirds spread pollen from plant to plant. It’s a symbiosis – a two-way street between a bird and a flower. These tiny flying machines have evolved ways to hold up their end of the bargain, rain, wind or shine.