pause and sip?

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Two days ago, I playfully blogged about hummingbirds pausing and sipping at a trumpet honeysuckle at Ijams. (See April 25 posting.) Pause and sip. Pause and sip. The tiny birds do this all day long.

But why?

The flowers that produce nectar for the hummers do not do it for free. They do it because they need the sipping birds to carry their pollen from place to place. It’s an example of mutualism: both the hummingbird and the flower benefit from the interaction. The word nectar is derived from the Greek “néktar” meaning “drink of the gods.” It is produced in glands called nectaries and is rich with natural sugars: sucrose, glucose, fructose and of trace minerals. Ahhhh! Drink of the gods, indeed.

But, it is to the benefit of the flowers that the hummingbird visits as many plants as possible during the day to spread the pollen over a wide area, so the nectaries only produce nectar a tiny sip at a time.

If the hummers want a nice long drink, they must visit your sugar water feeder.

Photo taken at Ijams Nature Center by my friend the late, great Jim Logan.

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