How Hummingbirds Feed & Fight

Photo by Anand Varma/National Geographic
Photo by Anand Varma/National Geographic
April 28, 2020 | Timothy Kenney

Hummingbirds are incredible, but sometimes they move so fast it's impossible to fully appreciate everything their tiny, nimble bodies are doing in the air. Hovering. Feeding. Fighting. That's why Burke Museum Curator of Ornithology Alejandro Rico-Guevara uses high speed cameras to capture hummingbird behavior frame by frame, both in the lab and out in the wild!

In this Curator Lecture, Rico-Guevara will share how became interested in studying the evolution and mechanics of hummingbird flight, feeding, and fighting, and also how museum collections like the Burke's have played a huge part in his research.