One for the birds
Small is beautiful for this Speaker’s Bureau volunteer

by Valerie Shore

What weighs less than a nickel, seems to fly faster than a speeding bullet and lives on the UVic campus?

Tessa Campbell can tell you. In fact, the UVic biology PhD student knows so much about hummingbirds that she frequently gives public talks on the tiny feathered dynamos as a member of the UVic Speakers Bureau. “There’s a lot of interest in these birds in the Victoria community,” she says. “Most of the questions I get have to do with feeding and how to attract hummingbirds, so that’s the focus of my presentation.”

Birds — big or small — have been part of Campbell’s life since day one. As a child she sometimes accompanied her father, renowned ornithologist Wayne Campbell, on field trips. She vividly remembers one visit to a seagull colony, umbrella in hand to shelter her from bird droppings. “I was both disgusted and fascinated at the same time,” she laughs. “As a kid, you put those two things together and you’re even more interested.”

By the time she was in elementary school, the hummingbirds buzzing around the the sugar-water feeder in the family’s Cadboro Bay backyard had become the focus of her curiosity. The more she watched, the more she wanted to know, especially about feeding them.

At age 11 the young scientist took action and set up a backyard experiment to determine the taste preferences of the Anna’s hummingbird, a year-round resident of the Victoria area. She set up a row of feeders, each with a certain concentration of sugar to water. Then she trained volunteers to help her with the observations.

The study continued for about three years, and expanded to include colour preference. Campbell discovered that the hummingbirds favour a much higher concentration of sugar to water than the 1:4 ratio suggested in most books. “They actually prefer a 45 per cent sugar water solution,” she says. “And they’re attracted to many colours, not just red. The only colours they don’t like are brown and green.”

The project did more than satisfy Campbell’s curiosity. It won her several honours, including medals at the Vancouver Island Regional Science Fair and the Canada-Wide Science Fair, the Canadian Wildlife Federation Award and the Association of Professional Biologists of B.C. Award.

As a UVic undergraduate, Campbell chose the same topic for her honours thesis. “Each year there are more and more Anna’s hummingbirds in Victoria and I wanted to see whether their taste preferences had changed with the increased competition,” she explains. She got the same results. Her work was published in The Victoria Naturalist.

Earlier this year Campbell travelled to “hummingbird central” — Costa Rica where she saw about 25 of that country’s 52 hummingbird species. “You step outside and there are hummingbirds whizzing around everywhere. It was incredible.”

Surprisingly, Campbell’s PhD thesis has absolutely nothing to do with hummingbirds, or any bird for that matter. She’s studying the molecular biology of Gaucher Disease, an inherited enzyme deficiency that causes a fatty substance to accumulate in certain body tissues. “I’m very excited about this work,” she says. “It’s made me realize I want to study human disease for the rest of my life.”

Does she miss studying hummingbirds? Of course, but she keeps that “hobby” alive through the UVic Speakers Bureau. Then again, all she has to do is walk around campus. Two species of the feisty little speedsters are here, the rufous hummingbird in the summer, and the Anna’s all year-round. Really. Just ask her. She’d be happy to tell you all about them.

Photo: Campbell with a picture of an Anna's Hummingbird. Valerie Shore photo