Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Home
Today's Show: Killdeer, Master of Distraction
Killdeer doing a broken wing distraction
Listen In
  • Today's Show
  • Listen
    • BirdNote Daily
    • Bring Birds Back
    • Threatened
    • BirdNote Presents
    • Sound Escapes
    • How to Listen
  • Explore
    • Field Notes
    • Sights & Sounds
    • Birdwatching
    • Resources for Educators
  • How to Help Birds
    • At Home
    • In Your Community
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • The Team
    • Board Members
    • DEI/IDEA Commitment
    • Partners
    • For Radio Stations
    • Funding
    • FAQs
    • Support BirdNote
  • Donate

Fruit as a Bribe

July 7, 2019
Nature’s ingenious distribution plan
Listen Now
Subscribe
  • Share This:
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to Email
Rose-breasted Grosbeak Expand Image
© Joanne Kamo

In summer, many shrubs bear fruit that birds find irresistible. Elderberries, serviceberries, blackberries, dogwood berries, mulberries, and currants attract many species of birds, including waxwings, tanagers, robins, warblers and this Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Plants offer this bounty in exchange for birds’ help in distributing their seeds. And in dispersing pollen, birds, bats and insects also help to guarantee a new crop of berries!

This show brought to you by the Bobolink Foundation.

  • Full Transcript
  • Credits

BirdNote®

Fruit as a Bribe

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[Rose-breasted Grosbeak song]

By mid-summer, many shrubs that in May shone boldly with flowers are now bearing fruit – fruit that birds find irresistible. Elderberries, serviceberries, blackberries, dogwood berries, mulberries, currants, and dozens of others. Waxwings, tanagers, robins, grosbeaks – even tiny warblers – feast on nature’s bounty. 

[Rose-breasted Grosbeak song]

We might think that plants are being generous by offering such a rich supply of nutritious fruits. In truth, something other than largesse is at work here. Plants evolved fruits as a kind of bribe, a way of enticing mobile creatures like birds to ingest their seeds. Birds then excrete those seeds hours later, as they move widely about the landscape. Plants themselves take no metabolic benefit from the sweet pulp of their fruits. Instead, they offer this bounty in exchange for birds’ help in distributing their seedlings in new locations. 

Flowering plants also, rely on winged animals for pollination. 

[Wing sound and call of Ruby-throated Hummingbird]

And in dispersing pollen, birds, bats and insects also help guarantee a new crop of berries: those brightly hued reminders of mutual benefit – the co-evolution between plants and animals. [Song of Rose-breasted Grosbeak]

Today’s show is brought to you by the Bobolink Foundation. For BirdNote, I’m Mary McCann. 

###

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Song of Rose-breasted Grosbeak [84866] recorded by W.L. Hershberger; wing beat and call of Ruby-throated Hummingbird [6116] by R.S. Little.

BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org  July 2014/2019  Narrator: Mary McCann

ID#      fruit-01-2014-07-22fruit-01

[key reference for this script was a chapter in Steve Hilty’s Birds of Tropical America entitled “Fruit of the Land: Birds, Fruit and Seed Dispersal”. Chapters Publishing Co., 1994.]

Articles on what berries birds like:

http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/10-berri…

http://www.birdsandblooms.com/birding/attracting-birds/plants-and-trees… 

Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Mary McCann
Narrator
Joanne Kamo
Photographer
Tags: ecology, gardening, hummingbird

Related Resources

Rose-breasted Grosbeak – More at All About Birds

More About These Birds

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus)

Pheucticus ludovicianus

Sights & Sounds

Related Field Notes

December 18, 2017

What does it take to record the world’s birds?

By Gerrit Vyn
February 14, 2013

Converting Pastures to Forest in Hawai'i

By John Kessler
Last November while vacationing on Hawaii’s Big Island, I had the chance to spend a day with Jack

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

Support BirdNote

  • About
  • Annual Report
  • Contact
  • Science Advisory Council
  • Pitch Page
  • Sights & Sounds
Sign up for our newsletter!
  • BirdNote on Facebook
  • BirdNote on Twitter
  • BirdNote on Instagram

Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy