8 Simple Ways to Help the Birds

Does Firebush Attract Hummingbirds? – If you have this question in your mind, then this article will clear all your doubts!

No other plant native to South Carolina has such fragrant and beautiful spring blooms and stunning fall color as the witch-alders. Fothergilla was named after Dr. John Fothergill, an English physician and gardener who funded the travels of John Bartram through the Carolinas in the 1700’s. These beautiful shrubs have been planted in both American and English gardens for over 200 years, including gardens of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

In July 2022, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) drew attention to North America’s migrating monarchs by adding them to their ICUN Red List of Threatened Species. In the United States, the more immediate plight of other threatened and endangered species has precluded the monarchs’ inclusion on the Endangered Species List. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged that their place on this list is “warranted.” They mandated that the monarchs be reviewed annually as a potential candidate for inclusion. These incredible insects migrate 4000 miles every spring and fall and face immense dangers on this epic journey. What simple steps can you take to help monarchs as they travel past your home?

Spring is here! All the signs are evident, including walking into caterpillars hanging from trees by slender threads (which happened to me last week). These danglers are often members of the Geometridae family, also known as inchworms or loopers. I love that their Latin name means “measures the earth.” The distinctive gait of these caterpillars makes it seem like they are taking their measuring duties very seriously. First, they deploy their front feet, and then, unlike other caterpillars with intermediate appendages, they pull forward their rear feet. This causes them to arch their bodies in that characteristic manner. Unsurprisingly, this onset of caterpillars coincides with the first flush of spring leaves, a buffet for these newly hatched critters.

I have grown a lot of viburnums over the years, and have pruned them at various times of year for one reason or another. Usually viburnums need relatively little pruning, assuming you planted the right cultivar in the right-sized space (for example, not ‘Mariesii’ among the doublefiles, shown, but ‘Watanabei’ if you only had a smallish area). Even the lightest form of pruning, the removal of spent flowers called deadheading, isn’t needed with most viburnums, since what you want is fruit after the flowers (unlike all that deadheading with lilacs, for instance, to prevent messiness).POOR PLANNING TO BLAMEMost of the pruning I’ve had to do on viburnums was because I didn’t leave enough room for the plant to reach its eventual size, and poor planning (meaning my impatience to have a filled-in garden) caught up with me in time. I have cut several viburnums to the ground or the

Garden visitors, average early January 2015 day:30 dark-eyed juncos 11 goldfinches 1 male Eastern bluebird 3 Northern cardinals 5 white-throated sparrows 12 American robins 7 mourning doves 9 blue jays 3 tufted titmice 6 black-capped chickadees 2 white-breasted nuthatches 1 red-bellied woodpecker 2 downy woodpeckers 1 hairy woodpecker 1 yellow-belli

Quick backstory: You may remember Charley, co-author of my most-used field guide “Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates,” from our recent interview about galls and leaf mines, two of his specialties.(I’m giving away two more copies; enter by commenting in the form way down at the bottom of this page, after reading the entry details in the tinted box just before that. The book can help you to know what you are seeing when you look closer, too—kind of like always having Charley by your side.)When that story ran, Charley had noticed a photo I used to accompany it–of a squiggly “leaf mine” I’d observed in my Asian-native big-leaved perennial called Petasites. He’d wondered if it was caused by the insect that feeds in a few different genera in the tribe Senecioneae (including some native American botanical cousins of Petasites).  Why don’t you come try to find out, I’d suggested—and while you’re here, why don’t we have a

A NOTHER SELECTION FROM MY EARLIEST PROSE, circa 1961, unearthed in a bout of housecleaning here this winter. This one earned me a star (which seems just right for a penmanship exercise about space travel), and marked the day the first American, Alan Shepard (who in 1971 would walk on the moon) went up in space.

These non-native “ladybugs,” introduced by the Department of Agriculture to help combat certain agricultural pests, have made themselves right at home in America—and in my house, too. In fall, the south-facing side of the exterior can be teeming with patches of them, as they look for places to tuck into and overwinter. The USDA imported lady beetles from Japan as early as 1916 as a beneficial insect, to gobble up unwanted pests on forest and orchard trees, but it was probably later releases, in the late 1970s and early 80s in the Southeast, that took hold. Today, multicolored Asian lady beetles have made themselves completely at home around the United States, easily adapting to regions as diverse as Louisiana, Oregon, and mine in New York State.

I first heard about “Bird Songs Bible: The Complete, Illustrated Reference for North American Birds,” edited by Les Beletsky, featuring sound from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and published by Chronicle Books, in this NPR segment last month. One caveat: The book-cum-boombox (birdbox?) ain’t cheap (cheep?) at $125.‘Millions Against Monsanto’ CampaignIWON’T ELABORATE OR START SHOUTING, but rather leave it at this: One of the things that scares me most is GMO crops, whether in the field or in our food. The Organic Consumers Union offers education, and also an advocacy program (aimed squarely at Monsanto, of course, whom they label “the biotech bully”) to make it easy for us all to add our names to the fight.

LOOKING FOR ME THIS LONG WEEKEND? I’ll be counting birds (and I hope that Mr. Ruffed Grouse of last week, like the one above, will come calling again). The Great Backyard Bird Count began at 7 o’clock this morning for a four-day run through the 20th. Here’s how you can help give researchers a better snapshot of this year’s winter birds in this important “citizen science” project:

Wind, which most simply described is the motion of air molecules—the air in motion—bring us more than just extra leaves to contend with.  It is a powerful pollinator, for example.The US Forest Service says that about 12 percent of the world’s flowering plants are pollinated by wind, along with most conifers and many other trees.Grasses and cereal crops are the most common types among the flowering plants. Since they don’t need to attract