USDA Forest Service Celebrating Wildflowers

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Bird Pollination

hummingbird and a purple flower.
Photo by Dr. David W. Inouye.

hummingbird and a flower.
Image by Paul Mirocha.

hummingbird and a flower.
Photo by Dr. Bill May.

Birds are very important pollinators of wildflowers throughout the world. In the continental United States, hummingbirds are key in wildflower pollination. In other areas, honeycreepers (Hawaii) and honeyeaters (Australia) are important pollinators. In addition, brush-tongued parrots (New Guinea) and sunbirds (Old World tropics) serve as tropical pollen vectors.

There are 2,000 bird species globally that feed on nectar, the insects, and the spiders associated with nectar bearing flowers.

Bird Flowers

The flowers that are visited by birds and hummingbirds are typically:

  • Tubular and have petals that are recurved to be out of the way
  • Have tubes, funnels, cups
  • Strong supports for perching
  • Brightly colored: red, yellow, or orange
  • Odorless (birds have a poor sense of smell)
  • Open during the day
  • Prolific nectar producers with nectar deeply hidden
  • Modest pollen producers that are designed to dust the bird’s head/back with pollen as the bird forages for nectar

Hummingbirds have very good eyes and are extremely attracted to red. They thrust their long slender bills deep into the flowers for nectar, withdrawing faces dusted in pollen.

Although a hummingbird weighs between two and eight grams (a penny weighs 2.5 grams), they eat frequently in order to power hearts that pump 1,200 times per minute and wings that beat seventy times each second. To survive, they must eat several times their weight in nectar everyday! For protein, they supplement their sugary diet with small insects.

In the eastern United States, there is only one kind of hummingbird, the ruby-throated hummingbird. In the southwestern states, birdwatchers can find a dozen species of hummingbirds.

hummingbird and a flower.
Photo by Doug Buckland.

hummingbird and a flower.
Photo by Grant Lau.

ruby throated hummingbird in flight.
Ruby-throated hummingbird. Photo by Dr. David W. Inouye.

For More Information

white-wing dove.
Photo by Migratory Pollinators.

Fun Fact

The white wing dove is also an important pollinator. According to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the doves synchronize their migration into the Sonoran Desert with the reproductive cycle of saguaro cactus. White-winged doves are important to saguaros as pollinators but they are also the main seed predators of saguaros. This is an interesting ecological balance.

U.S. Forest Service
Rangeland Management
Botany Program
1400 Independence Ave., SW, Mailstop Code: 1103
Washington DC 20250-1103

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Location: http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/birds.shtml
Last modified: Tuesday, 20-May-2008 15:56:10 EDT