Late summer flowers, late summer birds

 A hummingbird finds bee balm nectar to be irresistible. Ed Kanze photo

By ED KANZE

Certain things go well together. To give examples: peanut butter and jelly (although I’m strange in loving peanuts and disliking them turned into mush); bacon, lettuce, and tomato; apple pie and vanilla ice cream; and bread and butter, or if you’re being healthy, bread and olive oil. This time of year, one more dynamite combo comes to mind. I’m thinking of late summer wildflowers and late summer birds.

At the top of this menu I’d put the pairing of brilliant red late-summer flowers such as bee balm and cardinal flower with that most hyperactive and nectar-loving of our birds, the ruby-throated hummingbird. 

For hummers, who are soon to leave us bound for their primary residences in Central or South America, late bloomers are not just appealing because they’re beautiful. These flowers provide pollen and nectar at a critical time when the birds are gearing up to migrate. 

Pollen is rich in protein. Protein is important for building muscle tissue. Muscle tissue is what gets hummers in the air and keeps them in the air all the way to the Yucatan Peninsula, or wherever they’re headed. Hummers also acquire protein from insects. 

To power their muscles, hummers consume energy drinks. That’s where nectar comes in. Nectar is rich in sugar, and sugar is created by green plants in that miraculous process known as photosynthesis. Solar energy is captured and bound, and it’s what puts the “oomph” in energy drinks. Hummers use their long bills and even longer tongues to spirit sweet nectar out of the flowers that provide most of their sustenance.

Biologists tell us that hummingbirds and plants such as bee balm and cardinal flower evolved together in a process called co-evolution. Their business dealings have promoted the evolution of hovering flight and long slender bills and tongues in hummers, and the evolution of bright reds, oranges, and yellows in the tubular flowers of certain plants. Most of the flowers visited by hummers have a variety of adaptations to keep other insects from reaching their nectaries. One such adaptation is a slender stem that cannot sustain the weight of bumblebees. 

When hummingbirds leave us, often in September, they move overland for long distances. Eventually, most of them will likely fly across the Gulf of Mexico. These over-water flights are typically made by day, whereas a great many songbirds make them at night while navigating by the stars.

My wife, Debbie, and I had the pleasure of living in the beautiful Gulf Coast town of Ocean Springs, Miss., for several years. During that time, our yard would slowly fill up in early fall with dozens, and then hundreds, of hummingbirds. They’d work the flowers in our yard and neighborhood yards, and drain sugar water from our hummingbird feeders so rapidly that we could hardly keep them filled.

The hummers were waiting for something. They were waiting for a cold front. Eventually it would come. In the blink of an eye, the crowded airspace of our yard, which could be terrifying to cross if you were wearing a red shirt or red hat the birds mistook for a nectar-rich patch of flowers, would grow still. The birds would be gone, seemingly in an instant. They would ride a northerly wave of cool air toward their homelands in the tropics.

Up North, until they go, we in their breeding range are lucky to have late summer flowers and hummingbirds to savor. If you want to see hummers, keep watch around trumpet-shaped or tubular flowers of all sorts, but especially ones that are red. Hummingbirds cannot resist this color. It’s their ticket to daily survival and signal that the sustenance and aviation fuel they need is theirs for the taking.