I saw one doing the same in Cornwall,about 10 years ago,it was hovering like a hummingbird up and down a tree trunk.

I should make it clear it was not just hovering momentarily as you see them when grabbing insects from the underside of leaves. The bird hovered for a sustained period of time working its way up the lamp post in a 'C' shaped flight path coming away from the post by about 12 inches then returning again. This means that for half the time it was flying backwards. There was no apparent turning by the bird which maintained a consistent profile...I am now just waiting for a biologist or flight engineer to come on and tell me it can't be done.

Must be something in the air Adrian.
I saw a Kingfisher at Pennington Flash do exactly this on Sunday.
More Kestrel than Hummingbird Though...It flew out of the overhanging tree over Pengies Hide before hovering for what seemed like an age before making a dive (straight from the hover) just a few feet in front of the hide.

Totally took me by surprise and by the time I even thought about pointing the camera at him, he was gone...Just one very badly out of focus shot to show for it!

As I was waiting for the bus on Saturday morning a goldcrest appeared and started hovering in the manner of a humming bird on the sunny side of a lampost picking up insects and working its way up. It was about 6ft away from me. When it finished with the lampost it disappeared momentarily into the branches of a nearby tree and I thought that would be the last I would see of it. But it popped out and started hovering again. With a 500 lens in my bag I stepped back in the hope of getting it on camera which was when sods law stepped in. The bird flew accross Bury New Road and hovered again over the vegetation close to the footpath. Sods law stepped in yet again with traffic preventing me crossing the road but the bird was maintaining this technique for catching or picking off insects . I eventually crossed the road and the bird disappeared into the grounds of a hotel and along came the X44.

-- Edited by Adrian Dancy on Monday 28th of June 2010 11:15:28 PM