The Birds and the Bees

Natural History, May, 2000 by Robert (American businessperson and engineer) Anderson

In the warm months, I enjoy watching the animals that are attracted to the flowers in my backyard. Hummingbirds are particularly welcome, with their precision aerial maneuvers, including steep dives to fend off interlopers. Since I want to see more of them and since every organism seems to have at least one Web site dedicated to it, I turned to the Internet to find out how to lure these tiny, swift birds.

It didn't take much effort to find www.hummingbirds.net. It told me what I suspected about setting up a nectar feeder: "If you are not prepared to follow the rigorous maintenance routine outlined below, perhaps you should consider planting a hummingbird garden instead." So I clicked on "Attracting birds" to find out which plants hummers prefer. I discovered that because hummingbirds, like most birds, have virtually no sense of smell, the fragrance of the flowers on my ordinary honeysuckle vine did nothing to attract them. Apparently color is what matters. I need to plant something like coral honeysuckle. Perhaps then I'd have a chance at drawing more of the twelve species that visit California.

This site has concise descriptions of the seventeen species of hummingbird that summer in the United States and lists them by state. There are also migration maps for the tiny birds, so that if I ever get good enough to tell one species from another, I can help with first sightings in the spring.

The other creatures that visit my honeysuckle flowers have no problem finding the nectar. For more information on them, I went to the BeeHive (www.xensei.com/users/alwine/beesite.htm) which I enjoyed more for its information than for its graphics. Click on an item such as "Bees at War" and you'll find out that the Romans used beehives as catapult projectiles. "This was so effective that they depleted central Italy of bee colonies for their ammunition." I also discovered a new term--apitherapy, which includes bee-sting therapy. When I clicked on "Apitherapy," I learned about a woman who regularly uses bee stings to relieve the symptoms of multiple sclerosis--an approach now being explored by mainstream scientists. And I wish I had read "City Beekeeping" before I moved out of Manhattan; perhaps I would have contemplated a rooftop hive.

Robert Anderson is a freelance science writer based in Los Angeles.