110. Arehummingbirds the only birds that fly backward? While hummingbirds are probably the championsof backward flight, they are by no means the only birds that can fly in thisway. When two herons or egrets fight, periodically one of them caught at adisadvantage in the dispute will flutter backward. Occasionally warblersfluttering at the tip of a branch as they pick off insects will flutterbackward to a better position. Flycatchers regularly flutter backwardwhen they overshoot some flying insect. It is probable that any birdwhich uses fluttering flight can move backward when pressed to do so.
NOTE: It’s funny that this 1001 Questions Answered About Birds entry is a bit of an authors’ editorialmisstep.
Pose the question in theway they did, leading off with the “champion” description in the first sentence and ALLanyone really wants to know is more about hummingbirds.
Forget (for now) lovely herons, egrets and warblers.
HOW do hummingbirds do it and, more importantly, WHY dothey do it?
The answer to the secondquestion is, of course, obvious: Because they can.
It is part of the greattalent, freedom and commitment to that talent and freedom that God gave them.
A long time ago I had afriend whose salient trait was that he invariably drove in the wrongdirection fast. He was a nice person (basically; troubled, alittle hostile, but a good soul), but he was the opposite of thehummingbird: a sadpoor human heavily burdened with a highly symbolic deficit.
I would giveanything to fly and I’d love tofly like a hummingbird.
Faust: Don't Take Roots (Link)
From: 1001 Questions AnsweredAbout Birds by Allan D. Cruickshank and Helen G. Cruickshank (Toronto, General Publishing Company, 1958).
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