how did someone come up with the phrase “birds and the bees”?

That’s a good question. I have yet to see birds and bee’s mate, let alone with each other….

Several sources give credit to the great Cole Porter for coining the phrase. One of the legendary musician’s more famous songs was “Let’s Do It.” The 1928 standard contains the lyrics:

Birds do it, bees do it

Even educated fleas do it

Let’s do it, let’s fall in love

World Wide Words goes on to explain that the first “explicit use of the phrase” didn’t occur until 1939. An article on filmmaking from the Freeport Journal Standard stated: “A Frenchman was born sophisticated: he knows about the birds and the bees.” Hey, hey — vive la France!

The Straight Dope believes poet Samuel Coleridge was the likely originator. His poem, the cheerfully titled “Work Without Hope,” opens with:

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair–

The bees are stirring–birds are on the wing–

In other words, when the birds start moving and the bees start grooving

because when spring starts all of nature goes ballistic trying to reproduce. Some of the most obvious are birds and bees. Perhaps rabbits would work as well, but you know, there it is

Because they pollinate and reproduce.