Hummingbirds fly through dense foliage and other confined spaces to find nectar. Hummers can't flex their wings at the wrist and elbow to tuck them into their bodies, thus this achievement is exceptionally astounding.
Without such ability, scientists puzzled how hummingbirds fit through such small gaps, yet they move too fast for humans to see.
Researchers now understand how the small critters perform their tricks thanks to high-speed cameras. A research published last week in the Journal of Experimental Biology suggests hummingbirds employ two methods to fly in tight spaces
They approach the gap carefully, hover briefly, and fly sideways. They approach rapidly, pin their wings, and dart through like a bullet in the other.
Hummingbirds have long captivated scientists. The world's tiniest bird, the bee hummingbird, and the rainbow-colored fiery-throated hummingbird are among 340 species.
Only hummers can hover and fly upside down, backward, forward, up, and down. Hummingbirds have practically exclusive access to nectar, but flowers have a dedicated pollinator crew to help them reproduce, therefore scientists believe they co-evolved with flowers.
While watching hummingbirds fly outside his window, University of California, Berkeley biologist and engineer Marc Badger was impressed by their ability to quickly and easily negotiate dense greenery.
“When a dominant male would come and chase an intruder away, that intruder would fly through a bush,” study co-author Badger tells New Scientist's Matthew Sparkes. “It's like, ‘Wow, how are they doing that?’ It seemed to have teleported across the bush.”
He brought this question back to the lab, where researchers devised a hummingbird flying pattern experiment. An enclosure with two compartments joined by a tiny aperture was made. One was empty, and the other had a sugary hummingbird feeder.