Hummingbirds Shake Their Heads To Deal With Rain

 

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Slow-motion footage (see video at the link) has revealed how a hovering hummingbird is able to cope with wet weather. The cameras show that the delicate bird shakes its head with such acceleration that it can reach a g-force of 34 (Formula 1 racing cars typically reach less than 6g). This mid-air manoeuvre takes just 0.1 seconds and removes almost all of the water droplets from its feathers.

Professor Robert Dudley, one of the authors of the study, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: It is the extreme mobility - its head is going through 180 degrees in a 10th of a second or less - it is just extraordinary.