A new experience

Eliska, the visiting student from the Czech Republic, is looking into the pollination system of Erica discolour. As part of the study, she wanted to look into the avian pollinators of the species. To do this we set up some nets in the NVT owned and managed fynbos area to catch some sunbirds. The weather wasn’t on our side with scattered rains throughout the morning but we managed to catch some sunbirds to take pollen samples from their foreheads. The pollen collected can be matched to pollen samples taken from various plants, so collect pollen from avian pollinators we did. It was a new experience for me, and good fun! A secret formula sticky jelly was rubbed and dabbed on the forehead of each bird, the jelly was then placed on a slide, covered by a coverslip and melted. These slides can then be stored and the pollen collected counted and matched to plant pollen samples. It was a wet but productive morning, we collected a good few slides and I learnt more about studying pollination systems.

Collecting the pollen off a Lesser Double-collared Sunbird.

Melting jelly to fix the pollen on the slide.

The end result!