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I speak for the trees, for the trees
have no tongue.
- The Lorax, a Dr Seuss character
-
But there is one place where a person
can make choices that will lead in a small way toward greater
sanity in dealing with the natural order. That place is the private
garden.
- Allen Lacy, in The Inviting
Garden -
see
What's Coming Up #92
Seed in a feeder is a draw, true. But real attractions for
birds are protein rich insects to feed to their young, clean water,
and safe places to roost and nest. Do not use insecticides or
herbicides. Do leave at least one area where leafy debris and twigs
can accumulate. Then the killdeer may nest among gravel and twigs,
and the redwing blackbird stake out a territory in the cattail
stalks in a wet swale.
If you want birds in your garden, you
gotta have bugs for them to eat. No bugs, no birds. I know my
garden is a success when I see holes in the leaves of the plants,
because I know I'm feeding the birds.
- Neil Diboll, Prairie Nursery -
see What's
Coming Up #95
Never give up listening to the
sounds of birds.
- John James Audubon -
Little birds make a big woosh as they all take off at once
from the feeder.
You cannot open to door to a
chickadee and close it to other birds. The hawks will come, too,
and perhaps the turkeys. Even the cowbird, its young pushing the
rightful inhabitants from their nests, has its place.
Everybody says they love Nature, but
nobody ever invites her over to their yard. We mow plant life
to within an inch or two of it's life, relentlessly spray toxic
chemicals to kill all the bugs, be they good or bad, and then
wonder where all the birds went.
- Neil Diboll, Prairie Nursery -
We can plant to suit the needs of the
birds and other wildlife that find a haven and a habitat on our
home ground, and we can understand that to do so is a moral
dictate, not a personal whim.
- Allen Lacy, in The
Inviting Garden -
see
What's Coming Up #165
History is rich with tales of the
disastrous outcomes of some intentional introductions...
- IUCN The World Conservation
Union-
see What's
Coming Up #180
Would you chance ruining the
whole ecosystem to prevent rabbit damage?
Not all introductions worked well.
Rabbits were an unmitigated environmental disaster. Unchecked by
any natural predator, they bred at a staggering rate and chewed
their way across vast areas of pastureland as well as any garden
that came their way. Attempts to control them by introducing
ferrets, weasels and stoats did much more harm than good. Although
these predators probably killed a reasonable number of rabbits,
they also devastated populations of kiwi and raided the nests of
flighted birds.
- Bee Dawson, in A History of
Gardening in New Zealand -
see What's Coming
Up #138
Each bird, animal and insect
species has its place. It can be surprising, how easily some may be
bumped out of their rightful spots by aggressive
non-natives.
When possums were introduced in 1837
to start a fur industry, no one predicted that these Australian
neighbours would naturalize with destructive enthusiasm, wreaking
havoc on gardens and bush alike. Up to 20 million possums a year
were killed during the height of the fur trade, but this barely
checked their rapid expansion.
- Bee Dawson, in A History of
Gardening in New Zealand -
see What's
Coming Up #113
(Send) leafy, leafy collard greens
And please make sure they're washed!
Light up our eyes
Brighten our lives
With ten banana squash.
Turtle grocery list - William 'Bud'
Luckey -
Nature will bear the closest
inspection.
She invites us to lay our eye level with
her smallest leaf, and take an insect's
view of its plain.
- Henry David Thoreau -
Top, left: hardy gladiola (Gladiola
byzantinus).
Above: Dog day cicada.
Right: Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra
cuccullaria).
.
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