Natural History Wanderings

Victor Manuel Ortega-Jimenez and Robert Dudley’s recently published a paper “Aerial shaking performance of wet Anna’s hummingbirds,” in the  Journal of the Royal Society Interface.  They studied and recorded how hummingbirds shake to stay dry. They found Anna’s hummingbird can shake their heads 132 times every second while flying and still keep a sense of direction.  The shaking is critical as even a drop of water is a signficant weight when you weight only 1/8 of ounce. Read more and see a video at NPR: Shake It! How Dogs, Cats, Even Hummingbirds Keep Dry : Krulwich Wonders