Birds do it, bees do it,
Even educated fleas do it,
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love, like old-time bards,
With the birds and bees in our own back yards.
Build them houses, grow them flowers,
Create for them, protective bowers,
Cull a foreign invasive plant, grow a local one,
And watch neighborhood children delight in the fun.
I
n January, I had a fascinating interview with Colleen Bockhahn. The first thing Suburban Living readers should do is find a dozen people interested in backyard habitat and invite her to give a presentation to your group. She backs up lively, enthusiastic talks with a storehouse of useful information and successful experience in making backyard habitats productive and alluring. Her credentials are impeccable: Assistant Manager of Lake Crabtree Park, specialist in Environmental Education Programming, and President of Wake Audubon, the local chapter of the National Audubon Society.
She first teaches us to keep whatever native plants we have and get rid of invasive species. Our animals don’t use or eat Bradford pears, Privet shrubs, or English Ivy. Instead grow native plants, like beautiful, low maintenance, creeping phlox. After hearing her explain how stinky Bradford pears compete with lovely native dogwoods, I wondered how developers could litter new yards with it while turning their noses up to the local beauty.
I told Colleen about my adventure making a feeder and simple bluebird house, both mounted on poles twelve feet from other tall objects in my yard. The feeder attracted birds I knew well (cardinals, blue jays, and morning doves), others I had to look up (song sparrows, red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina chickadees, tufted titmouses, and purple wrens), and even birds I had not heard of before (dark-eyed juncos and brown thrashers). The brown thrashers especially fascinated me because, like the mockingbird in my front yard, each has many different songs. With a smart phone, you can identify these birds with the acclaimed app, “Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab of Ornithology.”
Our bluebird house adventure began after a male bluebird found a female who approved of his new digs. They filled it with twigs, and he began an around-the-clock vigil to chase everything living away. To prove himself a fine territory protector, he dive-bombed from near and far birds and squirrels many times his size. And protection his ladylove needed, for cowbirds were lurking in the brush. Those homely freeloaders wait until smaller eggs are laid and deposit one of their own in the nest. This usually kills a nest-owners’ egg and makes for more arduous feeding. I scared some off with a nerf gun, but father bluebird was far more vigilant.
Our reward for safe accommodations came in a few weeks. On a morning while drinking our coffee on the sunporch, we got to witness mother bluebird sitting on the fence, calling. Soon a small beak with big eyes peeked out the hole and flew more-or-less to her side. Next, another offspring peeked out, just long enough to cower back. Mother kept calling and after many minutes managed to coax number two from the safe-haven. Finally, number three showed its head, apparently wondering what happened to the rest. In the next hour, we never saw it muster the courage to follow its siblings but inferred from the next day’s empty nest that it must have. None of the family returned that year.
So, we experienced a bluebird fledging our very first year after putting up the boxy little house. Colleen said that in ten years of having a bluebird house in her yard, she has never been regaled of such an experience. I chalked up our difference of experience to the joys of being retired.
If you have a stream, pond, or even a rain barrel or bird bath in your backyard, a great project for your family would be to make it a Certified Wildlife Habitat through a program of the National Wildlife Federation. Besides a source of water, it needs food, cover, places to raise young, and sustainable practices. A brush pile, rock pile (with, of course, a flat rock for basking in the sun), or even an upsidedown flower pot can become a world in miniature. Just caution people to “observe, never unnerve.” Not only father bluebird gets upset with intruders, but copperheads, too. Colleen noted that “Every time I talked with someone who had been bitten, and ask them what they were doing, it’s often that they were harassing the snake. Snakes always look for a way out. There are probably really sweet copperheads and some grumpy ones.” But disturbed animals often become perturbed animals and grumpy is a natural payback for perturbing.
For adventurous local explorers, a trip to Lake Crabtree Park can be a great way to begin a new understanding of backyard habitat. Right next to the park headquarters and store, Colleen has created a delightful native wildlife garden. Her plants provide food for local wildlife, hosting for butterfly larva, and nectar for plant pollinators—bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and the like.
Speaking about bees, this story took me to another fascinating experience—a workshop hosted by the South Wake Conservationists (SWC). I met up with the group’s cordial president, Chad Chandler, at a club member’s house near Bass Lake. The instructions were to bring drills, saws, and gloves. Because my wife encouraged me a few years before retirement to build a workshop, I came well-equipped.
There is a great bee problem in Wake County but before you contact a pest control company, you might stop by a SWC meeting or take the family to the Bayer Bee Care Center in the Research Triangle Park. It is not us, but the bees that have taken a beating. “Colony collapse disorder” is becoming better known especially for its devastating effects on orchards. Imagine a time without apples and oranges and blueberries or even flowers and blossoms. Anyone who has ever been stung might think of these tiny, smart little buzzers as pests. But we depend upon them more than most of us imagine.
Pollinators pick up microscopic grains from one flower and deposit them in another. Most bee pollination is carried out, not by colonies, but by great varieties of solitary bees. And these are getting killed in enormous numbers by many factors including loss of habitat and exposure to pesticides.
Solitary bees may even be more vulnerable to pesticides than colony bees because of their nest-building habits. After burrowing in tree trunks, leaves, or soil treated with pesticides, the chemicals disrupt their lives. The SWC group is helping alleviate such problems locally by providing habitat. Members Guy and Judy Gardner brought to our workshop copious amounts of wood, varying from rough sawn to split stumps. They also brought seven little elfin-like houses drilled with bee-sized holes. A club member and I used a cut-off limb “Y” to build a “French waiter.” After attaching one split stump for a tray and another for a beret, we drilled bee-sized holes to make a connect-the-dots face and apron. Other members made gnome houses or geometric designs. Imagination was in good supply. Such bee houses could not only be useful, fun habitats for your back yard, but also teach your children how to use a drill.
We know our environment needs better care. But picketing governments or developers is boring. Rather, making good choices when caring for our own back yards will not only be good for all, but also be fascinating for ourselves and caring neighbors.
