Hummingbirds control hovering flight by stabilizing visual motion

The avian brain has numerous specializations for navigation and processing visual information, but relatively little is known about how flying birds control their position in space. To study the role of vision in controlling hovering flight, we developed a virtual reality environment where visual patterns could be displayed to a freely flying hummingbird. Normal flight could only be performed if the visual background was completely stationary. In contrast, any motion in the background image caused the birds to lose stability. In natural settings, visual motion is constantly produced when objects and observers move relative to each other. This research demonstrates that flying birds are surprisingly sensitive to movements in their visual field and direct flight to respond to those movements.