Today, we're in Shawnee, Oklahoma,
where they've got some eagles, hawks, even hummingbirds.
He's gonna do what we call rousing.
It means he's very happy right now, so he must like you two.
- Why have you never roused for me? - Sorry.
- Gav:
And action, hummingbirds.
- Go on, son. - Gav:
-
Gav:
That was wicked.
I really like filming animals at work.
I mean, it's just the best subject for me to film.
It's always stressful though
because you never know if a bird's gonna perform.
You can't exactly tell an animal to do something
and expect it to do it.
A slow mo rouse.
You know, I love depending on animals
to do what we want them to exactly when we want them to.
Maybe if we turn around, pretend we're not looking.
( chuckles )
- Go on. - Look at his feathers.
Gav: I got it.
It's funny how different birds have different methods of flying.
Like an eagle can just soar and maybe flap once a minute or something if it has to.
But then a hummingbird to stay where it is
needs to flap however many times it is a second.
Yeah, well we filmed both on the Phantom,
so why don't we go over to the screen and compare 'em.
Okay, so I brought up-- it's probably one of our very first shots of the day.
But supposedly the hummingbird beats its wings
the most times in a real time second on this clip.
So, what we'll do, we'll count the wing beats
until it's displaying one second.
I like that we have to have that small of a unit of time.
Yeah, I mean, you do. It's slow mo footage.
- All right, ready. - All right, count.
( music playing )
One. That's two.
Yeah, now it's on three.
This is three right now.
- That was three. - This is three, yeah.
Okay.
Now this is four.
Four. We might have to speed this up.
( music playing )
Gav: All right, that's one second.
- 48. - Well, uh, it's sort of 47 and a half
'cause it's sort of half way.
Oh, sorry, hold on. Yeah, uh...
- There we go. - That's right, you're not getting all the credit.
( laughs )
Only 47 and a half?
In one real time second.
That is really fast.
It doesn't seem that amazing when you're watching it back on slow-mo.
I mean, are you saying that our slow-mo made him less impressive?
- Yeah. - ( laughs )
- Yeah, exactly. - How many flaps could you do in one second?
- Three? - Maybe?
- An entire flap? - What does that look like?
( laughter )
Okay, this is good information.
So now we know that.
Why don't we now compare the footage
to the footage of the hawk that we have.
We'll have to speed this up
- to match the hawk. - All right.
- Yup. - That's two different worlds right there.
- Yeah. - ( laughs )
It's kind of unfair because the hummingbird
is about the size of that one's beak.
Yeah, you've got to remember that this
is actually like this big.
Also, they completely flap their wings in a different way.
Like the hawk bends its wings halfway
and it'd be kind of difficult.
That one just has straight wings.
The hummingbird just does this.
It looks like he's getting lift on his backstroke, too.
Whereas this one, he doesn't have to worry about it.
- He's kind of just enjoying the glide. - Both of those can fly,
but they've got two completely different ways of doing it.
I think we should learn a little bit more.
All right. Hey, Peter, thanks for coming on.
Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Dan: So we're with the hummingbird expert,
so, I don't know much about birds.
I'm hoping you could enlighten us.
- I'm happy to do it. - Yeah.
So we've just counted 47 and a half wing beats per second.
- I think we should round 'em up, I think he got 48. - He doesn't deserve it.
- All right, all right. - He didn't work hard enough for that.
So is that average, or is it usually they get more?
That's right about in the middle of the range.
So normally, between about 40 and 60 beats--
strokes per second.
One other thing I noticed is that it seemed like
they were getting lift on their forward flap
and the back swing, is that right?
Peter:
Dan:
Peter:
to flip their hand over.
It's basically their wrist going back and forth.
So it's able to get lift in both directions
which is-- it still has the same stroke,
forward and backwards that another bird does,
but it's flipping and able to get lift in both directions.
They're the only bird I've seen where in real time
I can't always see the wing. 'Cause it just looks like--
Peter:
I also like the fact that it's named after what it sounds like.
There's not many birds that-- coo-koo.
- ( laughs ) - A hummingbird... hummingbird, sure.
I can't imagine how tiring it would be
to be flapping your wings, you know, 60 times a second,
'cause I, you know, get on the couch and I get hungry sometimes.
- ( laughs ) - Well, they eat a lot.
they eat half their body weight each day.
They need a lot of energy.
Their metabolism is just outrageous.
It's the fastest metabolism of any creature or any animal.
And they're smart. They can remember which flower they were at
and which one had a lot of nectar and which one didn't,
and they'll return to the better flowers.
And they'll get territorial about that.
They'll take their bill and use it as a little spear. They'll just stick ya.
Gav:
and the other bird had to hop out of the way pretty quick.
Dan:
'Cause it seemed there was loads of food.
Peter:
but it turns out there's sort of two ways
you can go about being a hummingbird, right?
You can stay in one place and protect your one source of food.
Or you can fly all over the place
and visit, like, one or two thousand flowers maybe.
And it turns out it's cheaper just to stay in one place.
- ( laughs ) - You can save ten or twenty percent of their
energy expenditure in a day by protecting a place
instead of flying around.
It sounds like British tourists on sun lounges.
- ( laughs ) Yeah. - I parked it.
So even if they're flapping their wings
you know, 60 times a second, they're lazy.
( laughs )
They can't be bothered to go to 2,000 flowers.
Well, thanks very much for those amazing facts.
- That was great. - That was great, yeah.
- Thanks a lot for coming. - Thank you.
Okay, so we've done a comparison between different bird wings,
but we also filmed the eye lid of a golden eagle,
and I'd be interested to see who blinks faster,
the eagle or Daniel.
We have a blinking competition going on.
- You ever been in one? They're brutal. - I'm ready.
This might be the easiest thing I've ever had to do for us.
I usually ask for a little bit more of you,
but this one, all I need you to do is blink.
Just stand there.
Okay, when you're ready for me to blink.
- You just did. - Dan: Oh.
( laughs ) I got it.
- That was it. - All right, show's over, guys.
I feel like if I asked you to blink,
you would do a very unnatural blink.
- Dan: I'd be like-- - Gav: So I just got a blink.
Okay, I'm just gonna cue it up and then we'll go
and compare the speed to our eagle.
All right.
Okay, we have them cued up
right before the blink.
Place your bets.
Who's faster?
I'm the fastest blinker in the west, so...
- Yeah? - Dan: Yeah.
Okay, let's compare, are you ready?
- Yes. - Okay. Three, two, one, play.
- Oh, he smashed me. - Gav: Wow.
Absolutely smashed me.
Gav: And I feel like you barely completed the blink.
- Just finished. - Your eyelids barely met.
You like mostly blinked.
Yeah, I already like half blinked
and then mostly did it. That's ridiculous.
Ah, it's just majestic isn't it?
I mean, yeah, the way my eyebrows are...
just so bushy and nice.
( laughs ) What?
Well, I've learned something. Hopefully you learned something, too.
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and check out other episodes from "Planet Slow Mo."
- If I had to eat every 15 seconds I'd be so fat. - ( laughs )