David Attenborough Presents: Hummingbirds - Jewelled Messengers | Free Documentary Nature

in South America lives a group of extraordinary [Music] animals they are amongst the most spectacular creatures on Earth [Music] they have fascinated us for as long as we've known of [Music] [Applause] them they are hummingbirds and their glittering colors and their prowess in in the air are [Music] unmatched they are the celebrities the stars of The Bird [Applause] [Music] [Applause] world but what do we know about these unique Birds well they are tiny dwarfed by a scientist hand amongst the smallest warm-blooded animals on Earth and we can see that they live their lives in the fast lane in flight they are just a [Music] blur it's only when you slow down their supercharged lives that you can begin to understand how they live highspeed cameras reduce the speed of the action 1 second stretches out to 50 and enables us to look into the secret world of the [Music] hummingbird much of their lives Still Remains a mystery what we do know is that hummingbirds depend on flowers for their food nectar fuels their frenetic lives and that hummingbirds are only found in the New World most live in South America and this is where our story Starts Here many plants employ hummingbirds as Messengers but this wasn't the original contract when flowers first evolved over 60 million years ago there were no hummingbirds the first flowering plants depended on insects as their pollinators today many plants still do as butterflies move from flower to flow sipping nectar they take pollen from one plant to another the plants are fertilized the insects are fed this was the original Arrangement the plant and insect relationship has been a long and successful one but at a certain point some plants dropped their insect Messengers The Reason can be found in the forested mountains of South America here the mornings are cold and [Music] damp butterflies can't fly in these conditions insects are coldblooded their bodies are the same temperature as their surroundings so they are lethargic in the cool of the morning in the mountains insects are unreliable Messengers there was a need for a safer pair of [Music] wings we may never know for certain where this change of Messengers took place but somewhere in South America perhaps on the ancient plateaus of Brazil plants acquired a new partner it probably happened about 50 million years ago in the cool climate plants needed a reliable messenger and there was a bird that could fill that [Music] requirement a bird that possibly looked like this SB built hermit found a new way of making a living this ancestral hummingbird was most likely an insect and spider eater its heavy Bell adapted for grasping its prey at some point the earliest hummingbirds started visiting flowers did they do it to extract insects from the blossoms perhaps but as soon as the Habit developed then the birds could carry pollen from flower to flower and the first Hummers could not only catch insects but also drink the nectar [Music] the original hummingbirds with their heavy bills were relatively large and rather clumsy Flyers but this was the beginning of a long relationship with the plants and the birds evolved to better suit their new ways of [Music] life over millions of years bills became lighter and thinner to better probe the flower for [Music] nectar to reach the flowers demanded great flying prowess and the early hummingbirds became smaller and more agile than their [Music] ancestors [Music] as well as thin bills the birds developed long tongues to probe the flowers and sip the nectar reaching the nectar Demands a huge amount of energy and so hummingbirds did everything to lower their weight their legs and feet became so small that they could no longer hop or walk they could only perch they were already leading an extreme way of life living on an energy knife [Music] edge the early hummingbirds offered a reliable service to their plant Masters able to fly in all weather conditions and get through with the [Music] pollen [Music] [Laughter] [Music] for many millions of years hummingbirds remained generalists feeding from a wide variety of flowers and many plants took up with the new pollinators today there are over 8,000 different kinds that depend on the birds but there was a penalty to the New Deal the plants had to supply more food for their Dependable warm-blooded Messengers exactly for that reason warm-blooded Birds use 10 times more energy than the cold blooded insects they replaced a hummingbird drinks more than its body weight in nectar each day and hummingbird flowers produce a copious amount of liquid to suit their [Music] Messengers it was thought that hummingbird plants produced orange and red flowers to attract their Messengers but the story is more intriguing than [Music] that bees are red green colorblind the plants were hiding their precious nectar from these insect robbers that can't see the difference between red and [Music] green whilst making it obvious for their feathered corers the hummingbirds too paid a price to further protect their neure from insects the plants made their flowers long and thin and placed them at the end of branches only an animal capable of precision flying could reach the flowers hummingbirds had to hover and that cost a great deal of energy input high energy food but to obtain it demands high energy output hummingbirds were forced into a precarious energy Balancing Act holding perfect position in space is a hummingbird trademark no other birds can do it though the similar size banana quid does [Music] try but in truth compared to a hummingbird other birds look [Music] clumsy the reason is the way hummingbirds [Music] fly all birds except hummingbirds and Swifts their distant relatives gain power and lift on the downstroke then fold the wings for the upstroke and [Music] repeat hummingbirds keep their wings stiff and do not fold them instead they rotate of the shoulder so that the wing twists giving lift and Power on both Strokes the extra power gives the hummingbirds a great advantage and they can claim to be the most accomplished Flyers that have ever taken to the air until recently there was nothing that could compare with a hummingbird that is until a high-tech company in California invented a robotic one it's flying is just like a real hummingbird gaining power on both Wing Strokes it's a truly remarkable achievement it's so realistic it even fools real Flesh and Blood hummingbirds this Allen's hummingbird owns this Suburban Los Angeles garden and it's not prepared to share things reach a crisis point when the robot Hummer approaches the real hummingbird's nect to feder time to attack The Feathered hummingbird is only a quarter the size of the robot but he still tries to drive off the interopa by dive bombing it the robot depends on battery power and can fly for a few minutes but real hummingbirds can stay in the air for hours their special mode of flying gives the hummingbirds the power to maneuver in all sorts of ways unique among Birds they can fly [Music] backwards they can rotate on the spot even fly backwards and upside down the plants with their hard to- reach flowers had produced the ultimate aerial acrobats [Music] all this virtuosity in the air costs [Music] energy when flying hummingbirds have the highest oxygen demand of all vertebrates wings beat as fast as 80 times a second the problem is getting oxygen to the flight muscles when the bird is perched the heart beats around 400 times a minute in Flight it rises to an astonishing 1,200 beats per minute as the heart pumps oxygen-rich blood to the wing muscles even this is not enough when Hing and so the heart expands in size so it can pump more blood with each beat when this happens the blood circulates around the whole body heart to lungs to heart to muscles and back to the heart in under 1 second they're living at the edge of what is possible extreme aerial athletes with extreme needs it's no surprise that when they're not flying and feeding they rest and conserve energy humming birds spend 80% of the day perched and so they have time to stretch muscles and groom all important feathers showers provide another opportunity to clean and brush up feathers unlike insects hummingbirds seem to relish the rain so when the sky is open the minute birds take to the leaves to bathe even a banana quit joins in [Music] [Music] [Music] but bathing can only be a short interlude for hummingbirds need to feed on average every 15 minutes starvation death is only ever a matter of hours away it's essential for birds with such a precarious energy balance not to waste time visiting flowers that contain no nectar but is it possible that hummingbirds can remember remember all the flowers they've just recently visited this might appear straightforward when you have only a few flowers on a stem but what about when you face the task in an epe tree even here hummingbirds can and do remember the flowers they visited a great feat for a bird brain plants have certainly shaped hummingbirds their size their powers of flight hyperactive metabolism but the birds can't live by nectar alone they need protein and this they catch on the wing with the most remarkable precision and aerobatic skill not all flights are successful but most [Music] are [Music] [Music] the birds need the protein to build muscles and replace feathers the only problem is avoiding choking on the tickly little flies [Music] humming birds are unique in many ways but they share with all other birds the need to [Music] breed [Music] a [Music] the male wi crested thorntail has a bizarre way of impressing a female its courtship lasts a matter of seconds and was unnoticed until the high-speed camera revealed its unusual [Music] nature for a bird living on a knife edge the display appears an extravagant flaunting of energy and it may be designed to do just that to show off the M's [Music] Fitness [Music] despite all his energetic Endeavors this female remains [Music] [Music] unimpressed it's the female alone that builds the nest and tends the eggs but for hummingbirds even this is not straight forward to remain on the nest long enough to keep her eggs warm counterintuitively the female has to lower her body temperature only in this way can she reduce the time needed to spend away on feeding the most dangerous time in a hummingbird's life is when it's a chick they must stay inconspicuous only when the down feathers on their backs detect the down draft of their mother's Wings will they silently beg the chick are fed a rich mix of nectar pollen and insects but despite all this attention few nestlings reach adulthood even as adults hummingbirds face severe problems they have to refuel with nectar every 15 minutes so how do they survive the hours of Darkness every night of their lives hummingbirds face a challenge to stay alive until the morning their answer is as extraordinary as every other aspect of their lives they go into torper a kind of hibernation their body temperature plummets heart rate drops from 400 to 40 and they consume 100th of the energy they use when flying this is a truly radical and dangerous solution for whilst in torper they can't move there's no possibility of Escape From A nocturnal Predator that might find them as day approaches they start to shiver and warm up it may take half an hour before they return to normal only by these Extreme Measures can hummingbirds survive to greet another [Music] day living an extreme hyper energetic life as they do hummingbirds must ensure they have a supply of nectar for most hummingbirds this means guarding a patch of flowers large enough to support them the flowers are a bird's Lifeline so even when it visits a plant to feed a hummingbird keeps a weary eye out out for possible nectar thieves like this female thorn tail most trespassers when confronted by the rightful owner back off and leave the territory but in the main owners defend their patch of flowers by the most flamboyant display of color [Music] hummingbird feathers are extravagantly iridescent the colors are not produced by pigments but by layers of microscopic air bubbles in the feathers the air bubbles refract reflect and recombine sunlight to produce dazzling colors the colors depend on the angle of sunlight so hummingbirds can switch on and off their brilliant signals flashing a warning to an intruder but able to hide from an enemy [Music] if the warning flash of color fails then a hummingbird will fight although tiny they're not delicate tropical gems but aggressive combatants it's a matter of life and death an owner must defend its precious supply of [Music] nectar [Music] [Music] as befits the greatest Flyers much of the fighting is in the [Music] air [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the aerial battles are really a fight for flowers for without a territory most hummingbirds are in deadly trouble in Northern Brazil there are even temporary territories that last just a matter of hours the cactuses that colonize the bare rock only reveal their flowers in the afternoon in the morning they're hidden inside these strange caps and The Rock Garden is deserted but when the flowers open then hummingbirds appear as if by Magic they remember when the nectar becomes available [Music] [Music] the birds Feast on the copious nectar and in return carry away the plants sticky pollen on their bills and pass it on to other the [Music] flowers the Hummers carve up this miniature World patrolling their airspace and chasing off Interlopers the temporary rulers of the cactus are fearless they attack each other and ignore lizard far bigger than themselves but when it comes to bees and wasps they Retreat hummingbirds are too small to risk being stung it would be [Music] [Music] fatal the Hummers stay and feed and fight and guard their prickly patch until evening then as the light Fades they gradually slip away to return next afternoon hummingbirds with their remarkable adaptations were an evolutionary success they moved moved into a variety of habitats wherever there were flowers that needed reliable pollinators and about 17 million years ago another opportunity arose as the Andes pushed up by the drifting continents grew ever higher the volcanic Sierra reached up to over 5,000 M higher than the ancestral Brazilian Plateau creating new habitats the mountains also brought new challenges there was less oxygen at these dizzy Heights and the air is thinner less [Music] dense some plants offered their feathered Messengers support The Shining Sunbeam clings to the Future while it feeds and so saves the high cost of hovering other birds found a different way to cope with life in the high mountains the giant hummingbird has huge Wings the extra Wing area makes up for the thin air and the giant sweeps its wings in a vast Arc to create more lift the wing tips nearly meeting at the end of each stroke the giant is the biggest of all hummingbirds it's the same weight as a great tit and perhaps this is the upper limit for hummingbirds [Music] the Andes with their wide range of habitats produced an explosion of hummingbird species half of all the kinds of hummingbirds live in these mountains along with their plant partners and a few plants formed a closer relationship with their sexual Messengers this is angel's trumpet and its flowers are enormous 20 cm long the nectar is produced at the far end of the tube out of reach of most hummingbirds this Cor simply doesn't have the means of reaching the nectar only one bird can sip from the angel's trumpet this one the SW Bill its bill is actually longer than its body it has the longest Bill relative to body of any bird in the world and that remarkable beak and equally long tongue allows the sword build to feed where no other bird can and a Big Bill can have other uses the angel's trumpet is not the only plant to form an intimate bond with the sword bill this is a kind of passion flower and it too has a long tubular flower the orange on the sword Bill's chin is pollen each time it drinks from the passion flow pollen is transferred back and forth between plant and bird by forming this closely as on the passion flower and the angel's trumpet increase the chances of their pollen being successfully transferred to a plant of the same kind and the hummingbird has the nectar of the plants all to itself so both plant and bird benefit there's another hummingbird that has formed an even closer relationship it has an exclusive deal with this heliconia the heliconia protects its yellow flowers inside robust red brats the flowers are deeply curved only this bird can reach the Nector its Bill perfectly matches the curve of the flower like a key in a lock as it feeds at its private flower garden pollen is dabbed onto its head the bird transfers the pollen from one plant to another ensuring successful pollination because the sickle bill has the heliconia nectar all to itself it has no need to defend a territory instead it spends its day flying from one clump of flowers to another and not needing to display its ownership of flowers the sickle bill is not iridescent rather it's quite dull camouflaged against its exclusive [Music] flowers the next chapter in hummingbird Evolution was written about 6 million years ago some hummingbirds became even [Music] smaller these micro hummingbirds are amongst the smallest warm-blooded creatures on Earth they weigh as little as two gs the same as a single penny and they compete directly with the [Music] insects they're not only smaller than other hummingbirds they look dissimilar and they behave [Music] differently [Music] their flight is more like an insects as they roam freely through the forests feeding on a variety of [Music] flowers the mystery is is why the tiny Hummers like this wood star are not attacked by the bigger territory [Music] owners the aggressive Emerald ignores this little thief why [Music] more mysterious still the miniature woodstar shows no fear at all as it plunders the Emerald's nectar [Music] store [Music] it might be that the emerald doesn't recognize the tiny wood star as a [Music] hummingbird rather its small size and insect-like flight fools the bigger [Music] bird the emerald even shares a flower with a little sneak could it be that the woodstar is trading on the hummingbird's inbuilt fear of wasps and bees this new group of micro hummingbirds may have originated in Central America from there they've spread far to the North the drawer was flowers but there is one major drawback to living so far north winter so each Autumn ruby-throated hummingbirds must head south before the flowers die and leave them without food by September they arrived in places like Rockport Texas some may have already flown over 3,000 kilometers from Canada but many still face their greatest challenge they must continue South and for some that means crossing the vastness of the sea the local people put out feeders to help the migrating hummingbirds each arriving hummingbird feeds furiously they must gain weight converting sugar Rich nectar into fat in just 3 days a bird will almost double its weight this is the equivalent of a human of average weight putting on over 50 kilos of fat the arrival of the hummingbirds is a cause for a party and Rockport hosts the hummerbird celebration people come from all over North America to see these tiny Travelers most unusual pictures ever you're going to have to show your face oh yes absolutely yeah at the peak of the migration Rockport is temporary home to tens of thousands of Hummers this spectacle of so many hummingbirds can be found nowhere else on Earth but it can lead to some people making a spectacle of themselves the Hummer helmet is all you need once the birds have put on enough fat they move the short distance to the coast the time has arrived for the greatest test of their powers of flight the nighttime Journey at least 800 kilometers nonstop is an enormous undertaking for such tiny birds a last Sip and the birds set off across the Gulf of Mexico much about the journey remains unknown but recently scientists have tracked the birds using the Doppler radar of the United States National Weather Service designed to discover water droplets inside clouds this sophisticated radar can also reveal the path of flocks of small birds including [Music] Hummers once they're beyond the range of the radar their journey is shrouded in mystery there is much we still do not know about hummingbirds about their secret high-speed lives but what we do know is that they are the most remarkable colorful energetic and acrobatic of All Creatures they live at the limits of what is possible Nature's miniature Master pieces and all because they are the messengers of [Applause] [Music] plants

Channel: Free Documentary - Nature

Views: 597,357

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), nature documentary, Free Documentary Nature, Nature, Wildlife Documentary, Wildlife, Animals Documentary, Animals, Hummingbirds, Hummingbird Documentary, David Attenborough, David Attenborough Documentary, Hummingbirds Documentary, BBC Documentary, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild

Id: yc8oRjt7jpk

Length: 52min 51sec (3171 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023