Hummingbirds & High Speed Cameras

Hummingbirds are famously fast and elusive. That's why Burke Curator of Birds Alejandro Rico-Guevara dreamed up this incredible flight arena to study how these birds feed, fly, and use energy.

Rico-Guevara and Lab Manager Rosalee Elting have been finalizing their complex setup. It includes several high speed cameras, metabolic sensors to measure the bird's breath, and a custom flower instrument that can mimic different kinds of flowers hummingbirds interact with in the wild. Right now they are testing the flight arena with a captive hummingbird that is released back into the wild after a few weeks. But soon they hope to bring the whole setup to Colombia where they'll be able to get data from entirely free living hummingbirds that can come and go as they please.