Native Eastern Plants-- Black Cherry

The Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) trees that grow along my fence line have provided a wonderful food source for a number of my backyard birds. I believe that these are what has attracted my Scarlet Tanagers, Cedar Waxwings and feeds my regular Robins, Blue Jays.
Several species of butterfly and moth like the Black Cherry as well. Unfortunately, the Eastern Tent Caterpillar is one of them. When I do get infestations, I never use pesticides because both in caterpillar and in moth form, they are food for my birds.

Weed or butterfly host plant?

Many gardeners will recognize this picture of plantain, Plantago. I have allowed this weed to remain in my backyard wildlife habitat because it provides food for the caterpillars of Buckeye butterflies and some moth species. Every gardener seems to love butterflies, yet so many do their best to eradicate almost all of the food for their caterpillars.

I learned about this weed from the book Weeds: Friend or Foe?--An illustrated guide to identifying, taming, and using weeds by Sally Roth. I have the Readers Digest version, published in 2002, the version on Amazon has a second author listed--so this paragraph may not apply to the version there. As a gardener whose ambitions are larger than his time available, and of course as an avid bird watcher, I am constantly looking for shortcuts in what I can skip in my yard and can allow to grow as food sources for my backyard denizens. This book was a godsend to me! But, I do find one major flaw in Ms. Roth's book. She does not distinguish enough between common weeds and invasive species. There are many, such as multiflora rose and japanese honeysuckle that birds and pollinating/nectar drinking insects love, but these plants that crowd out our native flora need to be eradicated if we are to help our native animal species survive in our suburban "ecosystem." See Doug Talamy's book and website Bringing Nature Home for a discussion on just how important native plant species are to our local fauna. I am by no means an absolute purist in my garden when it comes to native --and local plants--but I am slowly working on ensuring that the plants in my backyard do the most to help the animal and insect species that should be here.

Backyard Denizens

More Spring Returns

CHIK-burr, CHIK-burr, CHIK-burr

Yet another bird call that I don't recognize when the songster appears in spring. This one is especially hard for me to remember because I hadn't heard nor seen him in years. As a matter of fact I didn't expect to see my Scarlet Tanager since the Town of Vienna allowed a beautiful three acre parcel of hard woods to be nearly clear cut for eight McMansions a few years ago! I learned a few years ago at the Department of Agriculture's Facility in Greenbelt, that the Scarlet Tanager is believed to need three acres of unbroken woods for each pair. I have to say I am very hopeful that these beautiful birds are adapting to their changing environment and learning to live in hedgerows in the suburbs.

I guess the little guy remembered my black cherry trees because there he was tonight on May 19 at 7:45pm , Chik-burring away. I still didn't recognize who was making the call, but as I scooped up Cardiac Cat and carried him toward the sound, the brilliant red with black wings sitting in our black cherry tree became unmistakable. He flitted off of course well before Cardiac Cat and I could get close enough to get a picture. (We'll discuss in a later post how unsuitable the iPhone is for taking bird pictures--especially of shy ones who prefer the canopy!)

Spring Returns

I'd been hearing a song--witchety witchety witchety witch--for the last several days that, for some reason, I can never remember year to year. It wasn't until this morning that I saw my songstress--a female Common Yellowthroat. This is only the second or third year that we've had these guys visiting our yard.

Rosa Rugosa

A bloom from our hedge of rosa rugosa in our backyard habitat. They didn't do so well until we fenced in the yard a few years ago. The deer were great for encouraging the roses to proliferate. Not so much for encouraging blooms.

My Backyard Habitat: Our First Frog