Hummingbirds provide the critical service of pollination while sipping nectar from the flowers of certain annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs, and vines. The ruby-throated hummingbird, Archilochus colubris, is the only species that commonly occurs in Massachusetts, where one of its favorite food sources is cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis. A wild perennial of moist areas, this plant is also easily cultivated. I have some in my garden so I decided to try to get a close look on video of a ruby-throated hummingbird pollinating cardinal flower.

Luckily this has been a banner year for ruby-throats, at least in my immediate area. Ever since their favorite flowers started blooming, the pugnacious hummers have been dive bombing, chipping, and chattering as they battle over coveted food resources. Within a few days of placing the camera at a clump of cardinal flower, I got many clips of birds in action. The close focus camera I used (Bushnell NatureView HD Live View), allows you to actually see how it pollinates the flower.

As the bird plunges its bill into the flower tube, its head comes into contact with the flower’s reproductive organ, the long shaft projecting up from the petals. The tip of that shaft bears male or female parts, as shown in the photo below. When a flower first opens, it has male structures at the tip, but after several days, the flower shifts to the female phase with female structures at the tip of the shaft. A flower spike may have some flowers in the male phase and some in the female phase at any given time. To pollinate a flower, a hummingbird must come into contact first with a male organ, and then with a female organ of another flower. It does so by sipping nectar from flower after flower, some male and some female.

The hummingbird is sometimes said to be a perfect pollinator for cardinal flower, perhaps because the size and shape of its bill and head are so well matched to the flower that pollination almost always results when the bird plunges its bill into the tube. However, to my surprise, I found that hummingbirds sometimes steal nectar from cardinal flower without pollinating it. I’ll show how that happens in my next post.

Related Posts
Summer Hummer Photo Shoot

Sources
Cardinal Flowers and Hummingbirds – Pollination Perfection