What makes hummingbirds such agile flyers?

Hummingbirds are one of the most agile fliers
in the animal kingdom - they can fly in any
direction and regularly perform aerial acrobatics
to evade predators and maintain their demanding diets.
Maneuverability -- the ability to change either
speed or direction on the fly -- is a hallmark
of powered flight in animals.
Researchers are now trying to figure out
how maneuverability--
this interplay between feathers and muscles,
weight and air -- evolved in birds
with the aid of hundreds of hummingbirds.
The hummingbird family consists of
337 different species,
with a variety of body masses and wing shapes.
To understand how these variations affect flight,
researchers observed the flight maneuvers
of 200 hummingbirds from 25 species.
Each bird was placed in a test chamber for 30 minutes
while their flight was tracked by a computer.
The computer recorded the birds’ flight
at 200 frames per second and the tracking
data was then analyzed using custom software.
The analysis showed that different species
favored some maneuvers over others, and were
usually much better at their preferred maneuvers.
Larger species tended to have higher maneuverability,
in part due to their larger wing size
and muscle capacity-- not just in relation to smaller
species but in relation to their bodies as a whole.
However, within these species,
the heavier hummingbirds tended to have
lower maneuverability.
Researchers also found that a larger wing area
relative to body mass enhances a hummingbird
species’ acceleration and turning performance.
So far, these experiments have only been conducted
on hummingbirds, but, in the future, researchers
hope to branch out to other species.
Also on the to-do list is the development
of small data loggers that can be attached
to birds in the wild, giving researchers insight
on how birds use these flight maneuvers in
their day-to-day lives.
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What makes hummingbirds such agile flyers?

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