Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur

by Sy Montgomery

And finally, there is hovering, unique to hummingbirds. No other bird really hovers—kites, storm petrels, kestrels, and kingfishers appear to do so, but only hummingbirds can sustain this method of flying for more than a few moments. Instead of flapping the wings up and down, the wings move forward and backward in a figure eight. During the forward and back strokes, the wings make two turns of nearly one hundred and eighty degrees. The upstroke as well as downstroke require enormous strength; every stroke is a power stroke. Like insects and helicopters, hummingbirds can fly backward by slanting the angle of the wings; they can fly upside down by spreading the tail to lead the body into a backward somersault. Hovering becomes so natural to a hummingbird that a mother who wants to turn in her nest does it by lifting straight up into the air, twirling, then coming back down. A hummer can stay suspended in the air for up to an hour.