Bird Hovering Flight Diagram

In hovering flight, a bird generates its own lift by means of rapid wingbeats. Holding its body nearly vertical, with its wings firmly flexed at the elbow joint, a hovering bird moves its wing surfaces forward and back in a horizontal plane; each of the two phases of the stroke generates lift. The blur of a hovering bird's wing beating the air like propellers is a sharp contrast to its body, which appears to be suspended.