Climate Change
Helping Hummingbirds - Conservation Action Series
A series about what we can do individually and locally to help hummingbirds
Climate Change -dealing with increasingly extreme weather
How can we help hummingbirds deal with the challenges of increasingly extreme weather?
It may seem that climate change is too great a problem for us to affect, but individual actions, added together, can make a huge difference.
Everyday we hear more about how climate change is affecting the world. Like us, wildlife are experiencing increasingly frequent and severe weather events (i.e., flooding, drought, heat, wildfire and smoke). How does extreme weather affect hummingbirds? How might we bolster their natural resilience?
Hummingbirds do have adaptations and behaviours that help them survive conditions typical to the habitats they live in and use. Hummingbirds use a lot of energy. Extreme weather events can add additional energetic challenges to their daily activities from breathing and feeding to nesting and migration.
Nectar
Nectar fuels much of a hummingbird’s energetic needs. However, it can be particularly difficult to find sufficient nectar during extreme weather. The sugar in nectar is made by a process called photosynthesis. This is a process where plants use light to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar. Disruption to the availability of water or light can interrupt this vital nectar supply. Plants reduce nectar production during drought because of lack of water and they also limit production under dark skies caused by heavy smoke or rain because of insufficient light.
When nectar production is limited, hummingbirds must rely on alternative sources of sugar, from tree sap to sipping the honeydew from scale insects. Our feeders are probably most important for helping hummingbirds during these conditions. A ready source of sugar at a hummingbird feeder will reduce the energy needed to search the landscape for enough nectar to survive.
Feeders are very important when nectar is less available.
Photo Credit - Christina Lam
Fire
With hot and dry conditions, we see an uptick in fires. Although fire is destructive, it can be beneficial for hummingbirds in the longer-term. In mature forests, fire opens up gaps and the ash fertilizes fresh growth (it is also a source of calcium for hummingbird eggs). Fire is even required for opening cones of some trees, e.g., lodgepole pine. Eventually, these trees will become a new generation in which hummingbirds can drink sap, forage for insects, and nest. As forest areas rejuvenate, the gaps made by fire will fill with flowers and shrubs, where hummingbirds also find nectar and insects.
Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium) is a common nectar source in gaps left by fire.
Photo Credit - kallerna, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
However, when a fire is burning, it displaces the animals that live or travel through that area. This can have large energy consequences for hummingbirds. They may have to abandon nesting areas or make large diversions to migration routes. Traveling over unknown landscapes costs energy as the bird does not have its usual mental map of the food supply. It will need to search out new sources of food and may experience substantial competition from the existing residents of the area.
Smoke
The smoke that comes with fire presents additional challenges to the hummingbird’s food and air supply. Hummingbird flight is extremely energy intensive and vital for their ability to use the environment. To supply the energy for hovering at flowers, hunting for insects or migrating across thousands of kilometers, they must burn a lot of fuel. This takes a ready supply of food and abundant oxygen.
Large volumes of oxygen are necessary for flight. One way that birds have adapted to providing their flight muscles with high oxygen levels is through a one-way breathing apparatus. However, we all know how difficult it is to breathe when there are a lot of particulates in the air and dense smoke takes a toll on the hummingbird’s ability to function.
Water
Water availability is very important during heat, drought, fire and smoke. In the heat, nectar becomes overly concentrated in flowers and in our feeders. Hummingbirds need to drink fresh water to dilute overly concentrated nectar.
Water is also vital for bathing, which helps with cooling and removal of dirt. Bathing can be a very important way to clean feathers during fire season when there is abundant ash in the air. Toxic material from fires can be washed from feathers rather than being potentially consumed during grooming.
Watch a juvenile Rufous Hummingbird drinking and bathing
Extreme weather can also result in damaging levels of rain. While hummingbirds and most wildlife will shelter from the full onslaught of a downpour, plants can’t hide. In contrast, they slow water and let it permeate the soil, eventually recharging groundwater. Unfortunately, uncontrolled runoff can wash away useful soil and the vegetation necessary for hummingbird foraging and nesting.
Surprisingly, many of the ways we can address drought also apply to heavy rain. Wetlands and planting of water-slowing vegetation are key for mitigating the impacts of uncontrolled runoff and flooding. In particular, careful planting of vegetative barriers can reduce the destructive runoff from impervious surfaces like roads. After large fires or long periods of drought, thoughtful replanting can restore a landscape with reduced vegetation.
We can help hummingbirds by acting individually and collectively. Importantly, our actions to help these important pollinators will help other wildlife in the province too. Biodiversity research by Adam Ford showed that if we conserve the habitat of Rufous Hummingbirds in BC, we would also be conserving the habitat for most of our wildlife, including large mammals.
Individually and collectively our actions can make a difference for these birds. We need to include them in our personal and local climate adaptation plans. In areas with limited rainfall, we can help hummingbirds by planting drought-tolerant local shrubs and providing feeders as a source of safe, clean nectar. We can also provide access to clean water for drinking, cooling and bathing.
At a larger landscape level, we can encourage land managers to bolster the natural resilience mechanisms of the ecosystems that hummingbirds use by encouraging wetland conservation and active fire management. In areas that are rejuvenating after wildfire, we can support efforts to re-plant with native vegetation that is drought tolerant, holds soil and slows water.
By taking action, we need not feel powerless. Many small, individual actions will limit the damage being done and give our hummingbirds opportunities to thrive.