Here’s an enjoyable craft that youngsters can make to help them remember the beautiful partnerships that exist between hummingbirds and certain flowering plants. The resulting paper hummingbird is visually charming and can become a child’s companion on a walk through the school (or home) garden, an ornament for their room, or even a character in an impromptu story or drama invented with friends.
As we all know, life is based upon relationships and interactions. The existence of living creatures is predicated upon favorable relationships with non-living, abiotic phenomena such as sunlight, the atmosphere, soils, water, and climate, etc. There are also vital relationships that unfold between living beings (in patterns that we can categorize with terms such as: predatory, parasitic, competitive, commensal, or mutualistic).
Well, hummingbirds are glorious examples of living creatures who have evolved mutualistic relationships with particular flowering plants. Both participant benefit from their association. The Ruby Throated Hummingbirds of the Eastern Temperate Forests are associated with the orange Columbines and scarlet Cardinal Flowers of this area – and many other flowering plants as well. Over thousands of years, the mobile hummingbirds have become very adept at assisting stationary plants in the transfer of pollen from one plant to another. When this happens, the seeds that result have more genetic diversity. This in turn enhances new plants chances for survival – particularly in changing environments. In return for their work carrying pollen from flower to flower, the hummingbirds are rewarded with energy-rich nectar, and even some pollen for themselves. This nourishment can power the tiny birds’ rapid wingbeats, metabolism and their frenetic lifestyle in general. The hummingbirds also help themselves and their partners by eating small insects who might otherwise damage the plants .
The key takeaway from all this is that over the course of millennia, such mutualistic partnerships have coevolved over the course of millennia in ways that enhance the survival of both the hummingbirds and the plants. Adaptations in terms of physical shapes, bloom times, and behaviors, etc. have arisen, that make such exchanges even more harmonious and beneficial.. For example, many of the plants pollinated by hummingbirds have developed nectar-filled, tubular flowers that are especially well-suited for the birds’ long beaks and tongues even as they exclude other pollinators who might not be as effective at transferring pollen. Many have evolved blossoms with bright reddish or orange colors that signal brilliantly when nectar and pollen are available. Humminbirds can detect these cues because they’ve evolved excellent color vision. Moreover, the bird’s wing muscles are so strong (even though the birds are tiny) that they can hover in place as they sip nectar. Thus they avoid damage to the flowers that might happen if they had to land on the actual blossom, After feeding, the hummingbirds zip off to harvest additional food from other blossoms. In the process, deliver pollen that’s been dusted on their face and beaks to the pistils of other flowers of the same species. The pollen fertilizes the enclosed ovules and new seeds (containing baby plants) are created!
This is a lovely mutually beneficial relationship to describe to the youngsters, but just in case the words ‘go over their heads,’ please do your best to ensure that the children still remember with a smile – these interactions between hummingbirds and flowers and their own human interactions with these important new understandings. Provide them with the opportunity to construct their own ‘pet’ hummingbirds with plenty of options for originality, considerations of beauty, and conversations with friends. If time permits, while they work, read some of the delightful folktales about hummingbirds which have been told across the globe.
Invite them to bring their finished hummingbird paper sculptures along for a walk to the garden – or a dash through the park. In sum, encourage the children to appreciate these astonishing little beings who help the wildflowers of the forest or the water’s edge, such as the columbines and cardinal flowers mentioned earlier. Let the hummingbirds also inspire children’s sense of wonder, their capacity for craftsmanship, and their propensity for imaginative, solitary or social play.
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