Starlings!

A hummingbird in British Colombia shows how to hover while taking dainty sips of sugar solution from a dispenser. Back home....

....the local starlings, of which, at present, we have a plague, use the same technique to sip at fat concealed in an earthenware cap.

We're inundated with starlings at the moment, with harassed parents being chased around by screaming children. They descend in gangs on our feeders, terrifying the tits and siskins and cleaning out the food almost faster than we can put it out. And, in their desperation, they've learnt how to get round every obstacle we've put in their path - like, they used to perch on the fat ball until we put it in the cap, so they learned to hover like a hummingbird.

Smart birds, starlings!