So I’m standing on the back porch watching the grass grow and a hummingbird takes off from the feeder 10’ to my right and hauls ass right to left diagonally away from me. I thought I saw him freeze for a second but I was not watching that close.
We have two kinds here now, the Rubythroat and a green type that seem to be up to 50% larger in apparent bulk. I think they are ‘Broadbills’…
Anywho, he crosses the yard for about 80’ to the pine trees and lands for about a two count and then hauls ass from right to left in front of me at about that same distance away from me and 12’ or so off the ground. He angled up and froze his wings in a streamlined gliding position just like a normal bird and glided for about 20’ in an arc. Then relit the boosters for another 20’, then glided for another 10’, restarted the engines again and turn to the right aiming for the corner of the house, glided another 10’ and then hit the turbos and went up and over the corner of the house and out of sight. All of this is in the open with no obstructions or anything to maneuver around.
I stood there slack jawed with my face hanging out, one hand scratching my head and the other scratching my ass and muttering to myself, "I din no they could / would do dat.?
So thinking I might be plum ignorant about this I fired up the ‘Google’ machine and asked in manny different ways. I read a lot and went to 40 or so different placers and I’m still ignorant. :: sigh :::
Have I witnessed a new fee-non-o-mon?
No answers from the hummer sites. (get your minds out of the gutter, this is serious nature bidness) So I ask here of those (paging Cecil) with better ‘google-fu’ if they know or can find the answer.
Is it possible that what you observed wasn’t a “glide” so much as the hummer just chilling for a sec and allowing ballistics to work? I’ve certainly seen this on larger songbirds – the bird drops from a treetop, flaps a bit to gain speed and direction, then just folds the wings and flies like a thrown rock for a bit, finally spreading some wing surface to reach the proper perch in the tree it was hurdling toward.
ETA: the hummingbirds around here certainly do what you describe – flap like mad when “hovering”, then dart a new direction, then just fly like a rock towards some target.
Bret W. Tobalske, Douglas R. Warrick, Christopher J. Clark, Donald R. Powers, Tyson L. Hedrick, Gabriel A. Hyder and Andrew A. Biewener, 2007 “Three-dimensional Kinematics of hummingbird flight”, The Journal of Experimental Biology, 210
It’s not Cecil you want to page here; it’s Colibri. He’s the guy Cecil himself goes to when he has an animal question, and his particular specialty is, in fact, hummingbirds.
I once saw a hummingbird glide a short distance while I was hiking, and I, too, was amazed. It was flying a few feet off the ground, then took a path resembling the first hill on a roller coaster. It gained altitude (to maybe 10-12 feet), stopped flapping its wings, and glided (glode? glid?) back down close to the ground, resumed flapping and disappeared into the woods. Just an anecdote, I know, but I swear it really happened!
Gus
I have seen em glide before. Always thought things that fly did it when they could to save energy. Hummers do it so fast ya hardly notice or so I think.
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Dan
Blake has already provided a cite from a journal. I would just say that I am unaware of anything about hummingbird wing shape or other factors that would make it impossible for them to glide. Certainly, they are not going to be able to glide or soar long distances because of their wing shape, but could do so for a short space.
