Eatery for birds and (exploitive) bees.
The days are getting warmer and the extra sunshine is starting to coax more color out along the trail. Today I spotted a cluster of pointy little rose-colored hats nodding among the common grasses and rue.
Aquilegia canadensis, or red columbine, features showy, drooping flowers with red outer petals surrounding yellow petals, from which protrude yellow pistils and stamens. The petals elongate backward into tubes, known as spurs, which are filled with sweet nectar that attracts long-tongued insects and hummingbirds especially adapted for reaching the sweet secretion.
"Skirting the rocks at the forest edge With a running flame from ledge to ledge, Or swaying deeper in shadowy glooms, A smoldering fire in her dusky blooms; Bronzed and molded by wind and sun, Maddening, gladdening every one With a gypsy beauty full and fine, A health to the crimson columbine!”
Elaine Goodale Eastman
Even with their extraordinary reach, hummingbirds must submerge their heads completely into the upside-down flower to extract the nectar, backing out dusted with pollen which they incidentally transport from one flower to the next. Nice exchange.
Some queen bumblebees also have proboscises long enough to reach the nectar. Others with short tongues, not wanting to miss out on the feast, cheat by tearing holes in the spurs to steal nectar without performing pollination services. Not so nice.
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