Research on hummingbirds (also known as nectar birds or Colibris), the smallest of the 9,800 bird species living today, has revealed remarkable facts. The world’s smallest birds are equipped with mind-blowing structures and functions that push all physiological and anatomical boundaries. The bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), considered to be the smallest bird in the world, is only 1.96-inch-long and weighs 0.06 ounces.

There are around 330-340 species of hummingbird and they live only in North and South America and the nearby oceanic islands. With their colorful feathers, they are some of the most beautiful birds.

How the hummingbird flies

A hummingbird flaps its wings so fast that the motion cannot be seen by the human eye but only detected through special cameras. The wings move at an incredible speed in a seemingly complex pattern, drawing circles back and forth 50 to 80 times per second, depending on the species. Under the genus Colibri, the horned Sungem (Heliactin bilophus) species flaps its wings 90 times per second; the purple amethyst Colibri (Calliphlox amethystina) flaps its 80 times per second. This speed increases up to 200 per second during a short spike while escaping from an enemy. Moving back and forth, the wings oscillate in the form of the figure 8 in the air. While in most other birds the movement of the wings produces the power to lift up and down, Hummingbirds, like helicopters, can perform movements such as hanging in the air or standing steadily as well as flying backward or rising in a vertical direction.

Figure 8

Metabolic rate and energy consumption

Flying requires a lot of energy. The amount of energy spent is related to the bird’s body size and flapping speed. In this regard, given that a colibri flaps its wings 80 times per second, it takes a great deal of energy to maintain such a rapid movement. The colibri’s chest muscles were perfectly created for flapping quickly and take up 40% of the hummingbird’s total body mass. Therefore, a colibri consumes more energy than other birds; it’s basically a fighter jet.

In order to meet this high energy demand, the amount of nectar a colibri consumes every day has to be equal to their body weight. Living at such a high metabolic rate requires a fine adjustment of food consumptions with precise calculations.

Such a high food intake requires a high metabolism – and thus, the need for oxygen increases dramatically. When the need for oxygen increases, there can be two kinds of conditions. Those animals with very large lungs can intake a lot of air at once. And those with smaller lungs can produce the required oxygen by breathing many times a minute. Colibri or Nectar birds are the ones that can breathe the most in one minute. The lungs of the world’s smallest birds breathe 250 times per minute to transfer oxygen to their hearts weighing a mere 0.003 ounces and beating 1,200 times per minute.

Toronto University’s Kenneth C. Welch Jr. studied the metabolism of hummingbirds for more than 10 years. He discovered that there is a relationship between the size of hummingbirds, energy efficiency, and oxygen consumption, and that larger hummingbirds are more efficient energy users than smaller ones. A hummingbird can take 2.44 cubic inches of oxygen per 0.03 ounces an hour. When a small weight is added to the bird, this amount increases to 3.66 cubic inches, and their tissues use oxygen very efficiently.

Energy requirements

A hummingbird’s metabolism is the fastest among all vertebrates. It needs to eat almost constantly to get the energy it needs to produce fuel for its breathtaking metabolism, which functions like a power plant. It receives nectar from 2,000 flowers every day. If we humans could work at this bird’s energy levels, we’d have to eat about 1,300 sandwiches a day to produce energy, and our body temperature would rise to 725 °F! Also, our hearts would have to beat 1,260 times per minute. Although nectar from flowers is the main fuel source driving the bird’s metabolic engines, it also occasionally eats insects, for protein needs.

During any given 30-minute period, hummingbirds burn the sugar they had taken in an hour ago. If we apply this rapid intake of sugar and the metabolic cycle in human beings, we would have to drink a large bottle of soda and burn the sugar in it every minute.

Unlike us, hummingbirds use both glucose and fructose from nectar in their intestines, circulatory systems, and muscle cells. However, we can support our bodies at urgent needs with an intake rate of 30% of glucose. Half of the nectar that hummingbirds take is glucose and half is fructose. In this modern age, high fructose derived from corn in our diets has paved the way for metabolic diseases and obesity – that is, people cannot metabolize high fructose.

Scientists are trying to determine how hummingbirds can process fructose. It is known that there is a carrier molecule different from glucose in fructose. This carrier is very rare in human muscle cells, but it is found in abundance in hummingbird’s muscle fibers; so we believe the mystery of how they utilize fructose so fast is about to be solved.

Hummingbirds have been equipped with mechanisms to increase the rapid introduction of nutrients such as fructose and glucose – which are basically small sugar molecules – or amino acids into their metabolisms. Their hearts and blood vessels work at a high speed to carry the sugar into their tissues as well as to transfer a lot of blood. In addition, a large number of capillaries have been implemented close to the muscle cells so that the blood can reach each and every cell.

Wing design

While humanity has not yet invented a machine that can move in a figure-8 pattern 80 times per second, including forward and backward, the ultra-flexibility of a hummingbird’s unique wing strokes demonstrates the special creation of its bones, muscles, and joints. The colibri’s brain and nervous system, which control these muscles and joints by transmitting signals, require infinite knowledge and power. The flexibility of the shoulder joint in the movement of the wings, which allows them to bend to extreme positions not found in other birds, gives us an idea of the wing’s unique design and architecture. Although biomimetic engineers have spent millions of dollars applying this complex system to technology, they have so far failed in their attempts to produce a similar machine.

Cooling the feathers due to the friction of the muscles and the tremendous movement of the wings is a problem in itself. While man-made machines need advanced cooling systems, the hummingbird has been created with a such a built-in system.

Unique tongue structure

Biologists from the University of Connecticut have discovered that hummingbirds’ tongues have a very special design and work like micro pumps. Tongues about twice the length of their beaks allow them to reach deep into flowers. The nectar is then pumped into the body in less than 1/20^th of a second. This occurs thousands of times each day. Tai-Hsi Fan and Margaret A. Rubega, who for a long time examined how hummingbirds stick their tongues 15 or 20 times a second into the tubular part of a flower, said that they “could not clearly understand how they drink the nectar.” In their latest study, they showed that it was only possible for the birds to hold nectar through two channels in their tongues. It was once thought that the physical rule of the upward movement of liquids in capillary tubes, even without suction, worked in the hummingbird’s nectar intake; but when special video recordings of the movement of their tongues were examined, it became evident that the tongue first compressed the nectar in a series of movements, then sprung up very quickly and the nectar was suddenly sprayed into the channels.

It would seem that both the hummingbirds and the flowers they need for sustenance were created in perfect harmony.

Red hummingbirds migrate from Alaska to Mexico every year. They can fly 56 miles per hour. Prior to this journey, they feed for one or two weeks to fill their fuel tanks, forming a layer of fat equal to half their body weight. Since these activities cause a lot of heat loss on the body surfaces, they cannot provide enough energy to stay active for more than 12 hours at a time. To counter this, they fall into a deep sleep every night for 12 hours. The energy storage, flight endurance, long-distance migration, and returning with the young ones are each complicated factors that their coming together to make this journey possible cannot simply be explained by blind chance.

Of course, the smallest bird in the world would have the smallest egg size: a mere 0.5 x 0.3 inches, for a total weight of 0.007 ounces. Considering that this wonderful bird’s design is embedded into this egg, which is about the size of the nail of our little finger, it can be understood how perfect a creation it is.

When a father’s inquisitive daughter asks him, “Why he is God invisible?” he thinks he’s getting off with an easy question. But the answer is far more complex, and wise, than he could have imagined.

Having an adolescent at home is a challenge, but answering their questions without triggering other question is a totally different one. And I should know this, because what else can you expect from the curious daughter of a researcher-father? Almost every day, she unloads a question on me, and the rest of my day is buried into deep thoughts over the answer.

Well, this time, I thought her question was an easy one. She asked, “Dad, why is God invisible?” Wow, that was easy. I felt like a child who knows the answer to the question the teacher asked:

“Our eyes are not capable of seeing Him. There are other things, too, that are invisible for us; like love or intelligence.” That was it. I was smiling in celebration of my effortless success. But my daughter, she wasn’t smiling:

“I didn’t ask why we can’t see Him. I said why is He invisible; that is why did He choose to be invisible to us?”

Good grief! How in the world should I know? I just tried to save the moment by giving the most straight forward answer: “Well, this life is an examination for humans. God invites us to find Him, and choose to submit to Him without seeing. That’s the rule of the game, or the challenge of the exam.”

She didn’t look satisfied with what I said. After a few seconds of silence, she blurted out: “Ok, it is part of what I am looking for, but not exactly.”

“If you can define what you are after, we can search for it, you know.”

“Dad! I remember you telling me that you can ask the perfect question only if, and when, you know the answer. If I don’t know the answer, how can I perfectly ask about it?”

Right there, I was shot with my own gun. I had used those words a few times to escape a mental fight or to avoid getting caught with an insufficient explanation. But, being daddy’s girl, she picked it up too quickly and she was expecting me to figure out what in her mind without her telling me. So this was something I was used to. All I needed was to focus: “Why is God invisible? Why did He choose to be invisible?”

Being invisible while being there… Things are better understood when juxtaposed with their opposites. So, I started thinking about being visible but not being there. This sounded like the people who shake hands with you while talking to somebody else, or those who can’t help looking at a computer or cell phone screen while talking with you. Then I remembered the cliche father depiction in the movies: a person who exists but no more – and the rest of the movie is focused on filling that void from lack of a father’s love! I realized that my brainstorm was taking me far far away… But the concept of parenthood? Maybe there was help in it.

Being good parents… I recalled the examples in the books and seminars about parenting. “Helicopter” parents would help their child in everything to the point that they would not let the child enjoy the feeling of success. Such kids would have difficulty in developing self confidence and entrepreneurship. “Absentee parents,” on the other hand, would not bother themselves, even if their kids were crushed under incessant failure. Such kids would have difficulty in developing trust and establishing long-term commitment. But what about these musings? Were they of help to probe into my daughter’s curious mind?

I remembered that parents were extremely important because the relationship between them and the child was the framework for the relationship between the individual and God. And conversely, God’s lordship was a model for parenting. So, if God chose to be invisible, was it a lesson for me as a parent?

For example, He was invisible, but He was not absent. People discovered God best when they were in their most desperate situations. And in normal times, He was enabling us to enjoy success and self-confidence by helping and guiding us in our actions without overriding our egos. Had this help and guidance been substituted by His infinite Will and Power always, we could not have controlled our actions, and so, we could not have developed even the notion of self.

I felt like I found a great gift for my daughter. But was this enough? Was this what she was looking for? Or part of it? Who knows? Perhaps, I should keep thinking. After all, I was her hero; I should not ruin her dreams.

I remembered how I was disappointed by some of my superheroes. In my childhood, superheroes were depicted as people who were there only in times of danger and emergencies. So, they were never put into contexts that would reveal a lack of character or a need to be cared for. But in recent times, superheroes were likely to be depicted with defects in their personalities. Even sometimes, they were shown trying to cover up those defects with their powers, making the picture even worse.

I did not want to disappoint my daughter. But as much as I was her hero, I was a human: a regular human with insufficiencies and mistakes. And, so was she. In any case, I didn’t want to be remembered through my negatives. Wasn’t I educated not to hit people in the face with their mistakes – but on the contrary, to cover them, if possible? Right at that moment, I saw that being invisible was the perfect way God did this for us. If He revealed His presence every time we did something wrong, how shameful would that be?

But, whether covering a flaw or doing a favor, what crowned those good deeds was when the person who committed them didn’t expect anything back. The best help was described as “done by the right hand without the left hand being aware of it.” Doing favors while being invisible like angels was the ideal. So, the other person only knows that they have been covered, and that’s it. They can’t see anyone who is going to ask for a return by reminding them of the favor; they can’t remember a face whose appearance would rekindle the regrets of the past mistakes. Their pride is not wounded, and their dignity is intact. They are left with a gratitude that can only be paid forward by doing the same for others. I thought, in this context, being invisible was another way by which God taught us benevolence and magnanimity by example.

Having gone through all these thoughts, I was guessing that I had found enough answers for my daughter. But since I had not figured out a way to deliver those answers without being visible, I was expecting her to have enough of me after a minute, and without much listening, to produce another question. I was wrong, and I was correct. She listened to me completely and attentively. Then she added:

“Today, during the exam, the teacher stood beside me for a minute. You cannot imagine what a stressful minute it was. Not that I was doing anything wrong, but seeing her made me so nervous. I remembered that you had told me that we were in an exam in this life. Then it dawned upon me that God being invisible was not only a part of the exam, but also a part of the help to success.”

This time, we both smiled… until she reloaded me with:

“Then why did God give the need for self-confidence and success, if they potentially lead to arrogance?”

When we have been sitting or lying for a long time we can suffer from orthostatic hypotension due to an insufficient operation of the sympathetic nerves.

When we are lying down, the blood pressure in our arteries is pretty much equal throughout the body. When we stand up, the blood pressure is affected by the gravity and increases in the vessels under the heart, while decreasing in the brain. If we lie down again, the blood pressure in the arteries balances once again. If these changes cannot be naturally controlled, then we may suffer an increase or decrease in blood pressure, which could result in a fatal injury.

There are baroreceptors in the walls of main arteries whose tasks are to measure constantly the blood pressure and to send data (electrical signals) to the brain, informing it about the blood pressure in the body. These baroreceptors are located in the aorta as it leaves the heart and in the carotid artery as it enters the brain. With the onset of hypertension, the frequency of the signals that are sent to the brain increases and this drops in case of hypotension. The center of vessel movement in the brain, with regard to the frequency of electrical signals it receives, perceives a low or high blood pressure.

In the brain is a vasomotor center; this continuously controls the blood pressure and regulates it. This center constantly receives data about blood pressure. If the pressure decreases, the signals of the sympathetic nerve increase. If the pressure increases, the signals to the parasympathetic nerves are suppressed. As a result of sympathetic irritability, the heart begins to beat faster and stronger. It pumps much more blood in a unit of time, and thus the blood pressure increases. The arteries and veins also constrict and owing to this constriction in the arteries, the blood pressure increases further. As a consequence of constriction in the veins, the extra blood that is stored inside the veins is pumped into the heart. Now, as the heart is receiving greater volumes of blood, it works faster and contributes to the increase in the pressure. In the meantime, as a result of the suppression of parasympathetic nerve signals, the heart contracts faster and stronger, thus pumping much more blood.

As the blood pressure rises, the mechanism which is in charge of reducing the pressure via vasomotor center is triggered. While pressure is applied to the sympathetic nerves, the signals that are being sent to the heart and vessels decrease. Thus, the rate of systole and the amount of blood which is being pumped decreases. As the arteries receive less blood the volume of blood in the system falls off and as the arteries and veins expand, the blood pressure falls. Due to the dilatation in the veins, the volume of blood which is sent to the heart also decreases and as a result the heart pumps less blood and the blood pressure drops.

However, by triggering the parasympathetic nerves, the signals that are sent to the heart increase. This helps to slow the heart down and ensures that there is less blood pumping through the system. As a result, the blood pressure which has been reduced via the sympathetic system is reduced even further with the parasympathetic system. At this point, it is necessary for there to be a rapid drop in blood pressure, which is provided by the simultaneous functioning of different mechanisms.

We cannot control this system and it acts extremely rapidly and with great elegance. Even in the systole period, when the heart is pumping the blood and there is a short and sudden increase in pressure and in the diastole period, when the heart relaxes and there is a short and sudden decrease in pressure, the system is in charge and functioning at every second, operating to increase the hypotension and to decrease the hypertension. The average healthy human heart beats 70 times per minute. Consequently, there are 70 systole and 70 diastole stages every minute; thus a normal balance can be maintained by decreasing the pressure, which increases 70 times every minute, and by increasing the pressure, which decreases 70 times every minute; this is how the body maintains a normal balance. In other words, this system functions 140 times every minute. Is it possible that this system, which operates throughout our life, a system that we are not aware of, a system that is so sensitive and vital to our lives, a system the details of which have only recently been understood after centuries of observation could be nothing more than a coincidence?

The pressure regulating system mentioned above carries out other important tasks while we are sitting and standing as well. The amount of blood going to the brain is related to the maintenance of a difference in blood pressure between the arteries and veins and to the recirculation of blood. In connection with hypotension, the pressure in the veins to the brain decreases, in order to partially compensate for the decrease in the arteries. By preventing a decrease in the difference of pressure (perfusion pressure) between the two systems, the continuity of blood going to the brain can be maintained.

In addition, a small decrease in the blood going to the brain can lead to an increase in acidity and carbondioxide in the brain tissues and to a decrease in oxygen; this results in the dilatation of the blood vessels in the brain. When these systems go into action anyone who is not suffering from orthostatic hypotension will have a stable amount of oxygen consumption in the brain when they stand up, and thus not experience dizziness.

In fact, scenes from karate movies are wonderful displays of the perfect functioning of this system. In such scenes, the fighter will jump up, and then suddenly fall to the ground; he will then suddenly spring up and performs different moves. Certainly with every movement, the blood pressure changes suddenly, but as a sign of the Creator’s mercy and grace, the body is able to maintain a balance. Should not the person watching these scenes stand in amazement, thinking: “Oh my God, what an incredible order! How great is Your knowledge, power, wisdom and art!”

As mentioned at the beginning of the article with reference to an actual sad incident, when a person whose sympathetic system is not functioning normally suddenly stands up, they can suffer from dizziness and perhaps even faint due to irregular blood pressure.

For patients suffering from orthostatic hypotension patients, it is important that they do not stand up rapidly. In addition, exercises that encourage the use of leg muscles before standing up will help pump blood towards the brain.

Pause for a minute… What would happen if this miraculous system did not exist? Consider how much time it would take you to merely get out of bed every day!