|
Adaptations
“Hummingbirds can go where other birds can’t,”
the Mass Audubon quiz says when I’ve gotten it right,
“this slender, needle-like beak is adapted for what purpose?”
photo of a bird looking left to show off its beak,
or possibly to watch the photographer, that sideways
tilt because how well do they see straight ahead.
My options were, “poking predators,” which could
be fun, though more likely they’d use them to duel
with rivals (bird life: so much tsuris) “piercing
tree bark,” we all know that’s woodpeckers,
“Storing nectar long term”—like a camel’s hump?
Would the beak start to bulge, the way snakes bulge
on digesting whole creatures, or a pelican’s crop
expands? Last choice, “reaching deep
into tubular flowers to access nectar,” is correct,
and yet something is happening with hummingbirds,
maybe not here in Massachusetts, but on the west coast,
Anna’s Hummingbird beaks have grown longer, slimmer,
the male beaks pointier, because somehow
all those sugar-water feeders people are putting out are not
tubular, and if you had free range of the sugar-water buffet,
wouldn’t you defend your spot against the other guys?
Told you that beak was used for dueling.
|
|
