How Do Hummingbirds Help Pollination?

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Barbara Dewitt. I'm a National Wildlife Federation Stewart with the Broward County Audubon Society. Hummingbirds help pollinate flowers by when they're feeding, they are lapping up the nectar at 13 laps per second, and they'll go into one flower and they will...their...parts of their head will hit the stamen. And then that...when they're finished feeding there, they'll go to another flower and their...when their head's in the flower, that part will hit the stigma, and that will pollinate the flowers from one flower to the other flower. And they are trap-line feeders, and so they go just like a postman will go from one house to the other every day and deliver flowers. The hummingbirds go from one plant to the other every day, and they feed so they have a good source there. You might see them. If you think you have a hummingbird and you see it at nine o'clock in the morning on one plant, if you look there again the next day, you might see that same hummingbird coming to that same plant at that same time, so it might work the whole neighborhood or the whole park and get the nectar from every flower. In drier weather, there's more nectar. When it rains or if we're using irrigation on our lawns, that dilutes the nectar, and so it's not so...as rich as when the weather is dry and that nectar can accumulate in the flowers. Also, if we keep our plants very healthy and plenty of them for the hummingbirds, we'll see more of the hummingbirds in our yard."