The surprising secrets of hummingbird flight - Kristiina J. Hurme and Alejandro Rico-Guevara

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.