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Hummingbirds have been athletic wunderkinds of nature, but new research from the University of Montana has blended high-speed filming and computer simulations to understand the bird's skills that take control of the environment while flying.

Watch the video below. You will see small air pockets swirl in "miniature tornado-like vortices" even as the birds take a right turn. While researchers understand that hummingbirds "induce lift" when they generate small vortices in the thick blue layers around the wings in the video, the simulations make it clear that the movement is more complex than thought.

With information gathered from the lab of University of Montana biologist Bret Tobalske, the video was created. The biologist captured birds in flight at 1,000 frames a second, which helped them to analyze the use of vortices in bird flight.

Scientists discovered that over 77.5 percent of the hummingbird's flight lift is created when it takes a down stroke, even as less than 22.5 percent is created during its upstrokes, according to the Daily Mail.

The simulation created by the scientists showed also that the inside of the wings helps to create a major part of the forces during both the down and up strokes.

The study was shown at the 68th Annual Meeting of the AP.

YouTube/APS Physics