The Hummingbird Whisperer

They’re tiny and they hover, and they’re one of only three groups of birds that are vocal learners. They sing with their mouths andtheir feathers. No wonder UC Riverside researcher Chris Clark is obsessed with hummingbirds.

For hummingbirds looking for mates, it's all about the right approach

In the world of Costa’s hummingbirds, it’s not size that matters — it’s sound. During breeding season, male Costa’s perform a high-speed dive during which they “sing” to potential mates using their tail feathers.

Singing tail feathers and a high speed dive help this hummingbird find a mate

You already know that hummingbirds are amazing animals — they can hover in place for minutes at a time, fly backwards at will, and flap their buzzing wings up to 70 times per second. But how much do you know about their bizarre courtship rituals?

Researchers document how broadbills make loud wing song

Broadbills -- birds found in some parts of Africa -- produce a startlingly loud sound that they make with their wings to mark off territory. Males fly abruptly in a tight circle, landing where they began, and produce a klaxon-like sound -- brreeeeet! -- that they could also be using to attract females. Researchers have hypothesized that it is the outermost wing feathers that make the sound, but no studies have been conducted to verify this hypothesis.

Watch: This little bird can sing with its wings

In African and Rufous-sided Broadbills, circular flight displays (see the video below) are accompanied by a pulsing song that can be heard from more than 300 feet away. The brreeeeet sound, which resembles a klaxon horn, doesn’t come from vocalizations, but rather from the fluttering of wing feathers, as explained in a study published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Hummingbird may get promoted

A flashy little hummingbird in the Bahamas could get upgraded to full species status, thanks to research that began with noise-making tail feathers. The Inaguan lyretail, one of what are called bee hummingbirds because of their small size, was demoted to a subspecies in 1945. Its official name, Calliphlox evelynae lyrura,honored the (somewhat) lyrelike curve and length of the far left and right feathers in its tail.

Aeroacoustics of Flight: 'Singing' Hummingbird Tails

The sexy zip of a male hummingbird as it dives is made not by its voice, but with its special tail feathers during its courtship dance. Christopher Clark, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, discovered these unique tail sounds.

How hummingbirds produce fluttering sounds during courtship

Though famous for their mid-air hovering during hunting, tiny hummingbirds have another trait that is literally telltale: males of some hummingbird species generate loud sounds with their tail feathers while courting females. Now, for the first time, the cause of these sounds has been identified: a paper published in the Sept. 9, 2011 issue of Science by Christopher Clark of Yale University reveals that air flowing past the tail feathers of a male hummingbird makes his tail feathers flutter and thereby generate fluttering sounds.

Anna's hummingbird chirps with its tail during display dives

The beeps, chirps and whistles made by some hummingbirds and thought to be vocal are actually created by the birds' tail feathers, according to a study by two students at the University of California, Berkeley.