Not starving, but thanks anyway

Is my face red! I just understood why scientists at Cornell Lab for Ornithology look down on backyard bird feeding. An article in the Native Plant Trust’s magazine finally put it in terms I couldn’t misunderstand. Birds aren’t starving, even in winter.

House finch in the snow-photo Steve Ryan

    Christopher Leahy of Mass Audubon surmises that the idea that wild birds need food was promulgated in the late 19th century, when conservationists wanted the public to think kindly about birds and stop killing them to decorate ladies’ hats with their plumes. 

Feathers in hats used to be de rigeur-photo Christies

Now we Americans buy 3 billion pounds of food for wild birds annually. Leahy says it’s OK to fill your birdfeeders if you wish, as long as you understand that you’re doing it for your own amusement, not because the birds can’t get by without the food.

Backyard birds like this blue jay are fun to see up close-photo Frank Schulenburg

    I have to admit that was a letdown. I’m a feeder—one of those mothers who expresses love by preparing loved ones’ favorite dishes. So I easily convinced myself that birds needed my help. Hearing that habitat loss was affecting birds just added to my conviction. I’d hate to have to spend the winter outdoors, since I hate to be cold. Wouldn’t the birds feel the same way? And what could they be finding to eat?

Food is love

    Fortunately for the birds, they’ve evolved strategies to get through the winter, as I’d have realized if I’d thought about it. Leahy assures readers that birds aren’t freezing out there. They have insulating feathers. And they’re used to gathering provisions from their winter habitat.

Northern mockingbirds finds berries to eat-photo Matt MacGillivray

    What I can do for backyard birds, Leahy reminded me, is to imitate wild places when I plant and maintain my garden. He argues for messiness. I’m with him there. Thickets and tangles of tree branches provide shelter and protection for birds. Some birds can find insects in those piles of leaves I’ve left on the ground. Others eat fruit from native shrubs, trees and vines. Still others like to find flower heads gone to seed on stalks that haven’t been cut down. Hummingbirds collect nectar from trumpet-shaped flowers.

Hummingbird sipping nectar from cardinal flower

    Last summer I planted a cross-vine (Bignonia capreolata) for this very purpose: to provide nectar and pollen for hummingbirds and native insects. I read that this vine will grow vigorously, so I planted it against the garage where it can get at least a half day’s sun. I’m hoping that in a few years, the garage and a nearby pergola over the garden gate will be covered with the vine’s waxy leaves and orange flowers with yellow throats. Cross-vine is native farther south, so a winter cold snap could kill it to the ground, but I’m told it will recover fast and keep on blooming.

I hope my cross-vine will look this good-photo David J. Stang

    I’ve already got two trumpet honeysuckle vines (Lonicera sempervirens) that are growing strongly and producing trumpet-shaped flowers. A trumpetcreeper (Campsis radicans) promises to add some yellow trumpet flowers once it gets old enough to bloom. I hope last summer’s hummingbird will be back to claim these vines next year.

Trumpet honeysuckle

 

 

Happy New Year!

Dead but still needed

“No kidding! Tell me something I don’t already know.” That was my reaction back in the 1980s when I read a prominent garden writer’s pronouncement, “Dead trees are not an enhancement to the landscape.” Flash forward to the 21st century. Whatever your aesthetic preference, for a sustainable garden, the expert and I were both dead wrong.

Downed logs do add to the sustainable landscape

    I’m thinking about dead wood because recent high winds brought down sizable branches from a white pine in our yard. 

Branch torn from the white pine by wind gusts

Fortunately they made it to the ground without crushing anything below. My initial thought was that I’d have to cut them up as yard waste later this winter when pruning season starts. Then I realized they’ll be more useful staying on the ground here in the garden.

    Dead trees were long thought of as unattractive and messy. Managers of parks and public gardens cleared them away to keep the landscape looking neat. I learned that the tide turned on this issue in 1986 with publication of an influential scientific study showing the many ways dead trees serve the ecosystem. In fact, it turns out that dead trees may provide more food for insects, birds, and mammals than live trees do.

Modern forestry lets dead trees lie

    Snags, or standing dead trees, and downed logs provide food and shelter for insects, which in turn feed birds and small animals, especially in winter. They also provide good spots for nests and dens. 

Some people make live trees into snags to offer birds housing and insects for food

As they decompose, they feed fungi that enrich soil and feed plants. Fungal hyphae transmit water and nutrients to roots.

    This is a great time of year to notice beautiful lichens in the woods. 

Lichens can grow on both live and dead trees

Back in your school days, you probably heard lichens cited as the classic example of symbiosis. They’re a partnership of mosses and fungi that are often seen on downed logs. Mosses share the sugars they make through photosynthesis; fungi contribute water and minerals they gather from the soil. Lichens don’t infect live trees, though.

    After consideration, I revised my plan for the downed pine branches. Instead of sending them out as yard waste, I’ll relocate them to inconspicuous areas of the yard where they can rot quietly and provide food and habitat.

I'll hope to see lots of growth on the dead pine branches

For those who would like more scientific information about neonicotinoid insecticides, I found an excellent report compiled by the Xerces Society. Here’s a link.

Friends, this post is abbreviated because I broke my wrist, and I’m having trouble typing. I may not be able to post next week. I hope to be back to you as soon as possible.

Mouths to feed

On a cold, snowy winter’s day, it’s lovely to see wild birds in the backyard. Last week I spotted nuthatches and a woodpecker at the suet feeder, chickadees hopping around the big hydrangea vine, and a female cardinal scoping out territory for this spring’s nest. Although my garden doesn’t attract rare, shy birds (or if it does, I don’t know enough to spot them), I like the idea of providing food and habitat on my suburban lot.

Thistle seed attracts small birds, including goldfinches

So it was a jolt to read in Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s magazine that “. . . although feeding birds may not be harmful to the species that use feeders the most, it also isn’t helpful to the species that most need our help.” Emma Grieg, leader of the lab’s Project FeederWatch, goes on rather condescendingly, “But don’t take down your feeders in despair. One of the most important impacts of feeding birds is that it allows people to feel connected to the natural world.”

    Wait a minute—harmful? Research by Grieg and Cornell Lab Citizen Science Director David Bonter assesses the balance between positive impacts of bird feeders—supporting populations of regular feeder guests such as northern cardinals—and negatives, such as “disease transmission, deaths from window strikes (when birds fly away from a feeder and into a house), and increased predation pressures," as when hawks eat bird feeder birds.

It's squirrel-proof, but is this feeder bad for backyard birds?

    I’m one of more than 50 million North Americans who feed backyard birds. I have a tube feeder for mixed seed, a hopper feeder for sunflower seeds, a thistle feeder, and the suet feeder for woodpeckers and nuthatches that like to eat hanging upside down. Last fall I bought ten 20-pound bags of birdseed at Mass Audubon Broadmoor Sanctuary’s Bird Seed Day Fundraiser. 

Blue jays are fun to have around

     I’d never thought there could be anything negative about bird feeders until I read George Adams’ book Gardening for the Birds: How to Create a Bird-Friendly Backyard.

     In addition to the potential harm noted by the Cornell researchers, Adams points out that birds evolved to forage for seeds and insects on their own. If they come to depend on food from our feeders, they could go hungry when we leave town. Also, we may be changing population dynamics, causing booms in feeder-reliant species, including nonnatives such as European sparrows.

Flocks of European sparrows can grab all the available food--Hopkinton News photo

     Is feeding birds just a feel-good activity, another ham-handed human intervention that gets in the way of natural processes instead of helping?  The Cornell article presumes that our goal in feeding birds is to save endangered species. 

     That’s one goal, but I have others. In winter, I’m proud to feed ten native species on Mass Audubon’s list of common backyard birds of the Northeast. I think they deserve to flourish, even if they’re not rare, and I know they’re contributing to the health of my garden ecosystem. 

Downy woodpecker hunting for insects

       To encourage birds to do their part in the garden by eating insects, I’ve stopped putting out seed in summer. I just need to get in the habit of washing those feeders more often.

Feeders need cleaning so they won't transmit diseases between birds

Welcome visitors

Today is a banner day for my garden. A hummingbird appeared outside my kitchen window this morning, feeding at a tall stand of yellow Oriental lilies and even perching on one briefly before darting away. Because of her subdued coloring, I’m guessing she was an immature female of our region’s ruby-throated hummingbird; she wasn’t sporting the bright greens or reds of the adults pictured on the website of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

            I rarely spot hummingbirds, and I’m going to credit this visit to my efforts this year to provide more plants that will attract wildlife. In addition to squeezing in native plants where I can in my already crowded landscape, I started an insectary garden this May to provide food and lodging for native insects. 

May 19, before the plants went in

It began with a few seedlings of cosmos and black-eyed Susans and some native perennials I chose because they were recommended by Jessica Walliser in her wonderful book Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden. For more about beneficials, check out Jessica's bug blog. 

Insectary bed July 25

           

 Thanks to her advice, I’ve now got a bed bursting with flowers and buzzing with new insect visitors. 

I can’t identify the bugs yet, but I’m optimistic that they’re contributing to a healthy balance in my garden’s insect population while also helping to pollinate my vegetables. 

Along with the swamp milkweed, yarrow, phlox and purple coneflower, I included a few zinnias and some sweet alyssum that insects like even though they’re not native to the Northeast. Today’s hummingbird visitor underscores Jessica’s point that some nonnative plants can provide services to wildlife. The Oriental lilies come from China, but their trumpet-shaped flowers apparently gave the hummingbird some nectar she needed. The new bed for insects has brought me a lot of fun, in addition to attracting hungry guests.

It’s been great to watch the new plants shooting up, making buds and opening their flowers. Besides encouraging beneficial insect predators, I also aim with this bed to provide food and shelter for native herbivorous insects near the base of my garden’s food web. When leaves are chewed, instead of worrying, I can count it as progress toward my goal.

           

Let the feast continue!

Welcome to the all-you-can-eat buffet

Now that I’m trying to encourage biodiversity in my ornamental garden and provide habitat for wildlife, I notice how much time I’ve been spending trying to foil animals, especially squirrels, rabbits and birds, who are pursuing their legitimate aims.

            Last weekend I spent an hour planting sunflower seedlings I’d started in the kitchen and surrounding each one with a foot-tall tube of fiberglass window screen tied together with bits of wire. I anchored the tubes to the ground with earth staples. The reason for all this fussing is that in previous years, squirrels bit the seedlings off at ground level, apparently enjoying a snack of sunflower sprouts. If I can give the sunflower stems time to reach a height of two or three feet, they’ll be woody enough to lose their gustatory appeal. Meanwhile, the visual effect of my arrangement is what my husband Steve once dubbed “the garden at Checkpoint Charlie.” 

Protected from squirrel attack

            Rabbits have moved into the neighborhood in the past few years. I thought having a dog would protect my garden from their nibbling, but not so.  They barely glance at Nadia, our German shepherd mix, hopping away casually if she gets too close. She seems a bit scared of them.

            After a summer when rabbits chewed my green beans to the ground as soon as they sprouted, I gave up and ringed the vegetable bed with a waist-high rabbit fence of half-inch wire mesh that’s sunk into the ground a foot deep to discourage the bunnies from tunneling under. That’s holding them off so far, but I figure it’s a matter of time before they find the weak spot in my defense—the narrow space between the ground and the lower edge of the gate. They still have free range in the rest of the yard.

            The fence allows me to grow vegetables for our table, but outside the fenced vegetable area, my preference is to share with other inhabitants of the garden. Sometimes this means changing my point of view.

            For example, years ago I planted six blueberry bushes, but I harvest about three blueberries per summer. That’s because the birds always get there first. I’ve tried covering the bushes with bird netting, only to find that birds have no trouble plucking berries through the netting. I, on the other hand, can’t lift the netting without tearing off berries and leaves. I could build a conspicuous frame to hold the netting off the branches, but instead I decided to change my attitude. I’ve declared that the blueberries are there to provide food for birds. That way I can be happy when the ripening blueberries disappear. I still harvest some raspberries and the paw paws that raccoons don’t get.

            By providing seeds, fruit, shelter, and nesting opportunities with native plants, I aim to provide more stable support for birds instead of putting out birdseed in the warm months. My sunflowers will help—if they survive the marauding squirrels.