ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2012
Flying in the rain: hovering performance of Anna's hummingbirds under varied precipitation.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Are Full-Night Samplings Necessary? Unraveling the Hourly Structure and Climatic Responses of Three Moth Groups in a Brazilian Pampa Grassland.Neotropical entomology · 2026Article
- Convective rainfall drives behavioral shifts across multiple foraging scales in breeding seabirds.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Microstructural Analysis of Termite Wings: Implications for Hydrophobic Adaptations in Rainy Flight.Insects · 2026Article
- Comparative Analysis of Fungal Spore Flora Among Birds, Insects and Air in a Temperate Japanese Forest.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Floral traits and their connection with pollinators and climate.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Multi-marker DNA metabarcoding reveals spatial and sexual variation in the diet of a scarce woodland bird.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Natural barriers: waterfall transit by small flying animals.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- On the autorotation of animal wings.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2017Article
- Flap or soar? How a flight generalist responds to its aerial environment.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Into rude air: hummingbird flight performance in variable aerial environments.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- Article
- Hovering performance of Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) in ground effect.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2014Article
- Into turbulent air: size-dependent effects of von Kármán vortex streets on hummingbird flight kinematics and energetics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Flight in rain represents a greater challenge for smaller animals because the relative effects of water loading and drop impact are greater at reduced scales given the increased ratios of surface area to mass. Nevertheless, it is well known that small volant taxa such as hummingbirds can continue foraging even in extreme precipitation. Here, we evaluated the effect of four rain intensities (i.e. zero, light, moderate and heavy) on the hovering performance of Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna) under laboratory conditions. Light-to-moderate rain had only a marginal effect on flight kinematics; wingbeat frequency of individuals in moderate rain was reduced by 7 per cent relative to control conditions. By contrast, birds hovering in heavy rain adopted more horizontal body and tail positions, and also increased wingbeat frequency substantially, while reducing stroke amplitude when compared with control conditions. The ratio between peak forces produced by single drops on a wing and on a solid surface suggests that feathers can absorb associated impact forces by up to approximately 50 per cent. Remarkably, hummingbirds hovered well even under heavy precipitation (i.e. 270 mm h(-1)) with no apparent loss of control, although mechanical power output assuming perfect and zero storage of elastic energy was estimated to be about 9 and 57 per cent higher, respectively, compared with normal hovering.
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