From the new west blog: be careful what you wish for
Backyard Temporarily Closed Due to Unprecedented Demand
By Jill Kuraitis, 5-16-08
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It’s taken me ten years to convince our backyard streamside wildlife that our deck is a safe place with cozy nests, old trees full of interesting holes, and quantities of healthy bird seed, squirrel chow, duck corn, and approved tidbits. This year, they all got the message, and the animal energy I wanted has finally arrived.
I love animals – I mean I’m plumb crazy for them – and have spent many hours researching exactly what attracts them, building wacky feeders and boxes for them, collecting nesting material with which to festoon the trees and planting the flowers recommended to draw their interest.
Our house is surrounded with birdsong; the heavy scent of our two big lilacs blows in, and the house and the outdoors are one.
Lately, things are zoo-like. The cat brings snakes in through the cat door. One of my nine squirrels, Itchy, is too bold, and comes into the kitchen to say “Hey! Empty feeder out here!” There are two active duck nests under the rhododendrons, a house finch nest in the plum tree, quantities of chickadees roosting in the tulip magnolias, singing their little two-note song, and I’m suspicious of some big clumps of – something – high up in the pines over the backyard, since a kestrel nested there once. The raccoons are cranky that I don’t leave out anything they’re interested in, but they turn up at night to make the dogs bark themselves asphyxiated anyway. And I seem to have an ant farm in the garage.
My family knows that perfunctory acknowledgement of my amazing feat is required. “Look! It’s a yellow warbler!” I’ll say to Husband, who drawls, “uh, huh” and pats me on the shoulder patronizingly, as if I am a slightly mad elderly person. But he does like it when I call the squirrels and they come, and know the precise quack that will make my favorite duck couple waddle over for a handout.
Once, neighbors observed a dead duck in the street two houses away from ours, and one said, “Must have been on its way to Jill’s house.”
Only the blue heron, Henry (they’re all called Henry, don’t you agree?) never gets close, of course, but he likes to stand in the stream to observe the goings-on and wait for a random fish to happen by.
I’d like to join Henry in his tranquil place, but I have wild things to feed.
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Comments
He would have driven modern ecologists wild with his desire to see life encouraged--not just our favorite species.
I suspect he approved of bait bucket biology...
I have tons of starlings in my neighborhood in the North end - they are highly annoying. Loud, aggressive, and they poop all over my car.
When I was a lad, oh so long ago, if you did not shoot any cat you saw while pheasant hunting, you ran the risk of not being asked back to hunt on that farm. Cats were a scourge outside the barn, and hunters were called on to keep the numbers in check. That does exist today in this society, and the birds are less well off for it.
Birds are part of the integrated pest management program on the farm I manage. Their greatest danger comes from the resident sharp shinned hawk, who is the most amazing pilot I have ever watched. He/she flies not down the rows of blueberries to catch his/her prey, but at right angles to the rows, several at a time and nabs the robins in the middles, seemingly out of nowhere. The robins explode in a cloud of feathers at contact.
Peewees, the smallest fly catchers, nest near the ends of rows, and I can tell by their numbers whether I have a lot of aphids or few. If all the territories are occupied, I have aphids a plenty. If not, there will be little pressure from aphids. And all of that just means that lady beetles will adjust their numbers to meet the aphid food supply.
We have as much riparian and gully ground as we do farm ground, and those are managed for native bees plus the large conifers. So, we are on the forage route of a pileated woodpecker, and have any number of flickers, hairys, and downys. Also the grosbeaks, orioles, tanagers, and other yellow birds, as well as kinglets, in the tall firs, and any number of kinds of LBFs in the brush or along the creeks. Four geese and nine goslings waddled by the other day on their way to the creek, and wood ducks are in the nest box.
My cat control is a coyote family that uses the farm, and are a pain in the butt. They just have to chew up drip lines as they dig for mice in the mulch. We have just fixed perhaps a hundred or more that occurred over winter. So all you city folks who dump your cats on the farm, you have to know the coyotes will eat them in the first day or so. Better you get your cat fixed, and keep it in the house, with your boxed cat toilet and pooper scooper, and all the little toys to keep it occupied. And keep your garbage sacks and extra cats in town. We really don't need you dumping them in the country.
I have heard that real barn cats and their jillion offspring are the worst bird killers. I recommend getting a nice boring domestic inside cat at the Humane Society.
If you look at the information, I'm sure you will acknowledge that bells are also ineffective.
http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/askdr/hunting.htm
The snakes that your cat brings in may not be dead, but they likely suffer from shock, and what if they don't live down the street? Snakes can have burrows and hunting territories, so your depositing a misplaced snake in a new habitat is no favor.
Everyone tends to justify their own behavior and believes that their cat, dog, kids, or congressional reps are exceptional, it's just everyone else that has the problem. It's hard to address a widespread environmental problem (or any other) when no one is willing to take responsibility.
The reality is you can't have it all, Jill. Birds and outside cats don't mix and every cat is a part of the problem, even yours.
This helped persuade us: http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/
Yes, it's painful. He wants out in the worst way. But until I can train him to kill only house sparrows (which are nest-robbers introduced from Europe), he'll remain an indoor cat. Know what else? He was an outdoor cat before we got him at the pound. I still think keeping him indoors is better than the alternative he was facing, and we supply him with endless toys. Of course he likes the ones that look like birds the most.
As a gardener in a never-ending battle against squirrels, I'd ask you to stop feeding them, too, but I think you're being picked on enough today. ;)
Per Bear Bait, I sort of take a Darwinian view of the situation: there are any number of predators around that are a danger to the cats (coyotes, great horned owls, and mountain lions, for starters), but we've decided to let them roam and take their chances (and their birds). They are expert at removing collars so the bell option doesn't really work. They actually seem to be killing fewer birds lately as they get older. But maybe we're being irresponsible, I don't know...
Of course, he won't live as long, but we will have more snakes.
Which is always nice.