Hummingbirds: Jewelled Messengers

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Nature Documentary hosted by David Attenborough, published by UKTV in 2012 - English narration

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Hummingbirds: Jewelled Messengers

This is the story of how hummingbirds became the ultimate creatures of the air. Hummingbirds live at the limits of what is possible. They have the highest metabolism – with a heart rate of 1,200 beats per minute – of any vertebrate. Their wings beat 50 times a second. They can hover on the spot, even fly backwards. To our eyes, they are just a blur. But with the aid of highspeed cameras we can slow down their hyperactive lives and look into their secret world. It is a world of great beauty, full of colour and balletic flight. But it all came about because of flowers. Hummingbirds feed on nectar and in the process they pollinate plants. Over millennia, hummingbirds have become smaller and more specialised. Today, some feed from only one or two plants; others have become so small they resemble insects. These extreme animals need to feed every 15 minutes, yet they manage to survive the night, and some fly for 20 hours, non-stop, over the ocean. They are the most remarkable creatures to ever grace our planet. This film, with neverseen-before sequences, reveals them in a new light. Corpus Christi, Texas is being invaded. 14 million Ruby-throated hummingbirds fly into the town in a period of 48 hours. They are about to undertake the most remarkable journey, flying non-stop over 1000 kilometres across the hostile waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The trip will take 25 hours non-stop flying. They now weigh only 4 grams. That is not enough; they do not have enough fat to fuel the flight. They need to weigh 6 grams. The local people put up feeders where hundreds of glittering hummingbirds swarm, as they feed and put on weight, ready for this critical and dangerous stage of their migration. After binge feeding, the birds set off. The local coastguard and military can now track the hummingbirds as they fly across the sea by radar! Narrated by Sir David Attenborough