The document discusses why hummingbirds flap their wings more frequently than larger birds like eagles and vultures. It explains that hummingbirds must flap their wings to balance themselves while simultaneously hovering and feeding on flower nectar. In contrast, larger birds of prey can conserve energy by soaring at high altitudes when searching for food, rather than expending extra energy flapping close to the ground.

1. Is humming bird heavier or a vulture? The very question itself is ‘stupid’ and hence
who would like to waste their time to answer such question. If the humming birds
are ‘small’ then why they flap wings 60-80 times per second while flying when
compared to vulture or kite or eagle as they simply soar in the sky without flapping
wings?
Birds flap wings while flying only to balance in the air. To balance, flapping of wings
is necessary hence they flap. This is theory. The speed of the flight and the weight
of the bird also determine the number of flapping of wings by the birds.
The interesting question is that why humming birds flap their wings more than
vulture or eagle or kite. Humming birds are indeed one of the smallest birds in
avian kingdom. Why such a small bird flapping its wings so many times whereas
birds like turkey vulture, eagle and kite easily soar in sky for hours without flapping
wings even once.
There is a certain management message these two groups of birds convey to the
corporate. Although the weight of the humming bird may be far too less, but its
feeding style require and demand the humming bird to flap its wings continuously.
Humming bird gathers nectar from flowers. Uniqueness of the bird is that while
flying, it gathers nectar. To balance flying and gathering nectar simultaneously, they
have to flap the wings vigorously and continuously.
Quite contrary to that, the birds like eagle, vulture, kite etc., although weight heavy,
fly high in the sky. They prefer to fly high because only from high sky, they can
easily spot their prey. While searching a prey, it is wise not to spend too much of
energy as greater energy is required for hunting the prey animals.
In the case of humming birds, it is flapping its wings continuously while eating the
food. It justifies the greater expenditure of energy as such energy expenditure is
essential to gather its food.
When the birds like eagle, kite and vulture flying high, it easy to balance in the high
sky than flying closes to the ground level.
The corporate leaders must learn the importance of how and when the resources,
effort and time must be spent. Most corporate and its people spent lot of time, effort
and resources in discussing/brainstorming on what they should do. For doing,
hardly there will be any serious effort or resource or even commitment. Many
corporate these days engage only in just discussions and nothing else. While
preparing the agenda for the meeting, they deliberately forget to prepare any action
steps, follow-ups or monitoring mechanism of the results.
Eagle conserves its resource as it knows when to use the same so is a humming bird.
The humming bird lavishly spent its resource only for the purpose of gaining profit.

2. Nature sends several management messages for the corporate to learn and
understand. Every resource needs to be ‘utilized’ appropriately otherwise the
results will never be in line with expenditure of the resource.
Dr S Ranganathan, ClinRise Derma Pvt., Ltd., Chennai
Learn more from the following management books
1. Jungle wisdom for corporate management – lessons from the university
of nature by Dr S Ranganathan
2. Nature – The Entrepreneur by Dr S Ranganathan