The variety of beautiful orchid blooms in their many shapes, colours, and sizes, is an adaptation of orchid plants designed to attract particular pollinators to the flowers. These are generally bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, flies and other insects, but are also birds! Hummingbirds are the predominant bird known to be orchid pollinators, and scientists believe that this evolutionary relationship may have started with hummingbirds hunting for insects and spiders amongst the fragrant blooms of orchids, and discovering the delicious nectar that they now feed on! Birds pollinate only 3% of all orchids, but with some estimates of there being up to 35,000 orchid species, this could still be in the hundreds.