Here we see a female rufous hummingbird once again frozen in midair by the speed of the camera shutter. But it is her wing oscillation and beat that keeps her suspended or hovering like that and alas, my camera’s shutter at the time was nowhere near quick enough to freeze the motion of those exceptionally fast tiny wings. Understandably, hummingbirds are the fastest birds on the planet, but they don’t all have the same rate of wing beats per second. This speed can range between 12 and 80 beats with the larger hummingbirds having the slower beat. This subspecies, the rufous, have an estimated beat rate of between 60 and 70 beats per second which has them a little way behind the fastest, and smallest, hummingbird, the calliope at 80 beats per second.
Want to learn some more amazing facts about hummingbirds? Check out hummingbird101.com
