Hummingbirds can fly at speeds of up to 50mph. Not bad for such a tiny bird!  But that is far from their most remarkable achievements.   The flying abilities of hummingbirds allow them to produce dazzling speeds. They need that speed in order not just to find flowers, but get at the nectar before their competitors, other hummingbirds, interfere with them. They also like to avoid photographers. Then they need to fly and react fast.

The flight of the hummingbird is one of the marvels of the natural world. Hummingbirds are able to rotate their wings at the shoulder because of their modified wing bones.

A couple of years ago, I watched a wonderful TV show, Magic in the Air. In it Professor Doug Aufschuler, interviewed on the show called them “some of the most elite athletes of the animal world.”  That is surely no exaggeration. They can fly, not just backwards, but in a figure 8 pattern. They can also  fly briefly fly upside down.

Hummingbirds need a lot of fuel each day because “their metabolism is stuck in overdrive,” as the television show aptly put it. Even at “rest” the hummingbird’s heart beats up to 600 times per minute or 10 times per second!  What kind of a “rest” is that? When it is active that heart can beat twice that—i.e. 1,200 times per minute or 20 times per second!  Their hearts beat at about 10 times that of an average human.

No wonder they need such large hearts. That is why the heart of the hummingbird accounts for nearly 1/3 of the bird’s weight.

The Anna’s hummingbird which we saw often in Arizona, has a spectacular mating display which I have seen. The male dives at the females and chirps at amazing speeds. It has been thought to dive at an incredible 10 G’s, similar to the force at which jet pilots black out.

 Hummingbirds are astonishing birds. I watched a PBS show on Nature called “Super Hummingbirds.”  That is an appropriate title. It was fascinating because Hummingbirds are fascinating.

As they said on that show, “Nothing in the world is a like a hummingbird. Their abilities border on the magical. They fly with such speed they seem to alter time.”  Or how about this one, “Hummingbirds seem to spring from the imagination. They have abilities other birds don’t have. Time seems to bend for them.”

Their wings also beat at astonishing rates. The wings beat at more than 70 times per second! Even high-speed cameras blur those wings.

 The high-definition cinematography used in that in the show was also outstanding. They had some amazing shots of a hummingbird coming right into a flower. How is that possible? Obviously, they had put a tiny camera inside a flower! Humans are almost as amazing as hummingbirds!

Even though hummingbirds fly so fast it often seems like one could not be sure if one saw a hummingbird or not. They are like tiny phantoms. Yet, “Hummingbirds are made to be seen. They catch the light.  These sunlit gems evoke such wonder, we struggle to describe them.”

 These really are astonishing birds. Among the most fascinating in the endlessly fascinating world of birds. As the television show said, “hummingbirds are more than just beautiful, they are brilliant.” I could not have said it better myself

“Astounding” seems like much too mild a word.