Oh Hummingbird

If you ever watched the amazing gyrations of a hummingbird around a liquid feeder you can’t help but sense a deeper meaning for the word AWESOME. With some 300 varieties worldwide, the hummingbird is the smallest bird in nature. Weighing less than a tenth of an ounce, he has much in common with a helicopter. These aerial acrobats fly backward, forward and sideways and hover in midair. Their wings beat an incredible 80 strokes per second and their hearts beat 1,000 times a minute. They inhale 250 times a minute and their metabolic rate is so high that it must be fed constantly.

The nest of the hummingbird is not much bigger than a postage stamp, made out of thistledown and cobwebs. And built into this pint-sized bird is one of the most complex flight mechanisms known. Their wings rotate at the shoulder socket, giving them their helicopter motion. To maintain this high-energy output, hummingbirds get their fuel from the nectar of plants, which is high in sugar. As they hover at a flower, they can draw 13 sips of nectar a second with specially designed beaks and tongues allowing the extraction of nectar deep inside the blossom of a flower. They must remember which blossoms they have drained and return in rotation to allow each flower they’ve visited to produce a fresh supply of nectar. They can’t afford to waste energy trying to extract nectar from empty flowers.

What would you say if someone told you they believed a helicopter evolved without a designer? Knowing there is no other bird or pre-bird creature (living or fossilized) that even slightly resembles the amazing hummingbird with its integrated features, the sensible thing to do is simply admit that here again is another telltale example of the Creator’s awesome design.

From Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, Dennis R. Petersen, (Creation Resources Publications 2002), p. 116