Times of the Islands Summer 2021

feature
Opposite page: Robust, funnel-shaped flowers in bright hot colors are the Bahama woodstars’ favorite food.
Above: The next generation of Bahama woodstar hummingbirds is ready to leave their nest at Harbour Club Villas. The mother (at right) is
carefully supervising her young chick.
The Stars of Our Woods
The Bahama woodstar is TCI’s only regular resident hummingbird.
By B Naqqi Manco, TCI Naturalist ~ Photos by Marta Morton
Some years ago, while drilling drift seeds for a craft project, a bay bean Cannavalia rosea seed escaped
and rolled across the floor, at some point getting swept out the front door. Seed coat compromised
and sitting in an enriched flower bed, it took in the rain and did its best to out-show Jack’s beanstalk. It
wound up a shrub, then up a string to the eaves, where it scrambled eastward and dropped numerous
runners, eventually cloaking the entire front of my house, eaves to ground, in a thick tangle of leafy
vines. Following a heavy rain, it bloomed with such ferocity—its purple blooms like succulent sweet-pea
blossoms—that it became something of a buffet line for nectar feeders.
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