Tag Archives: habitat

Turning Useless Lawn into Vital Habitat

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As the winter chill wears off, many of us are anticipating how we can spiff up our yards. That can be a tall order when we’ve inherited a landscape of sterile lawns and imported ornamental plants that have no business growing in Montana—or, most likely, wherever else you happen to live. Fortunately, this situation presents us with a wonderful opportunity to bolster the native ecosystems we know and love. How? By replacing exotic species with native plants that are both beautiful and provide real value to birds, insects, and other native wildlife.

Our blue penstemon and other flowering plants feed a host of native insects, including a variety of bumblebees.

A Scientific American article titled “The American Obsession with Lawns,” points out that lawns began sprouting up in America in the nineteenth century. They were an attempt to emulate trendier Europeans and, more important, to display wealth and status. Fast forward to today, and a house doesn’t seem complete without its neatly-mowed spread of Kentucky bluegrass. Unfortunately, our obsession with lawns comes with a host of problems.

As you can see, we aren’t purists. Here, native mock orange (white flowers), snowberry, and fireweed thrive amid California poppies and some kind of honeysuckle I can’t recall the name of!

Especially in the West, lawns gobble up water that we can scarcely afford. Just how much depends on location and other factors, but keeping a lawn alive can devour between 15 and 75% of a family’s household water consumption. Keeping those lawns green and pristine-looking also can be expensive, especially factoring in the gas and electricity required to run lawnmowers, and the fertilizers and herbicides to keep lawns green and weed-free. Speaking of “weed-free,” despite industry claims that herbicides and other garden chemicals are safe, I am skeptical. Do you really want to be dumping things into the soil that may persist for decades and have unknown long-term health risks. I don’t—especially when my yard sits only twenty feet above the aquifer that I and the rest of my community depends on for drinking water.

Despite industry claims, I don’t think we’ll know the full impacts of a lot of chemicals for years. Unless we want to keep repeating chemical disasters, it seems prudent to avoid commercial herbicides and insecticides whenever possible. Replacing at least a bit of your lawn with native plants is a great way to do that.

All that said, my biggest beef with imported lawns and plants is that they have needlessly transformed productive habitat into sterile expanses with almost no useful function. Sure, a lawn is great for kids to play on—we keep a patch of it ourselves—but our grass obsessions have come at an extreme cost to wildlife, especially to native insects and birds. Many of you have probably heard the shocking statistics that America has lost one quarter of its breeding birds in the short space of fifty years. There are many causes for this, but habitat loss probably ranks at the top. While much of this loss may have been unavoidable, in the case of our lawns, it is not.

Even common, beloved birds have seen dramatic declines in the past fifty years, and habitat loss is often a culprit. Yards filled with native plants can be a major step in reversing this trend. (This is a newly-fledged Black-capped Chickadee sitting in one of our mock orange plants.)

Author Douglas Tallamy (Nature’s Best Hope) points out that 40 million acres of our nation’s natural habitats have been converted to turfgrass—an area about 42% the size of Montana! If we “turf owners” convert just half of our lawns to native habitat, it will restore an area larger than the Everglades, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Teton, Canyonlands, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Badlands, Olympic, Sequoia, Grand Canyon, Denali, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. Talk about your game changer!

One great thing about native plants is that once you put a few in, they find where else they want to be. This patch of beebalm came up totally on its own—much to the delight of honey bees, bumblebees, and butterflies. (Golden currant in the background, angling up to the right.)

Fortunately, converting your yard to native plants is fairly easy to do. A simple online search reveals nurseries that offer native plants all over our state (also check your native plant society—see below). You don’t have to create your own “national park” all at once. Just dig up a strip of your present lawn and put in some native shrubs. Here in Montana, you’ll want to stick to deer-resistant plants such buffaloberry, juniper, or maple sumac—or better yet, protect plants with fencing until they grow large enough to thwart deer. Before planting trees, think about how big that tree is going to be in fifty or one hundred years—and plant it in an appropriate spot. If you live in a fire area, you’ll want to make sure you keep a defensible space around your house, too.

Native plants don’t just “grow” native insects. Many provide fruit and seeds for birds, as this berry-laden serviceberry branch shows.

Incorporating native plants into your yard brings immediate rewards. Our modest native plantings attract chickadees, juncos, wrens, kinglets, and other native birds, many of them feeding on the insects that the plants produce. Why not join the fun? You’ll discover a whole new aspect of gardening, and take satisfaction in helping the wildlife we hold dear.

This House Wren and its mate successfully raised a batch of youngsters in our yard last summer. At times, the pair were bringing caterpillars and other insects to their chicks every two or three minutes! To my satisfaction, I watched them grab most of these insects right off of the native plants in our yard!

Sneed’s Favorite Native Plants for the Yard That Don’t Need Deer Protection: buffaloberry, maple sumac, juniper, mountain mahogany, chocolate coneflower, yellow coneflower, Oregon grape, pussytoes.

Sneed’s Favorite Native Plants That Do Need Deer Protection (at least until they grow larger): golden currant, beebalm, burr oak, purple coneflower, mock orange, aspen, rabbitbrush, serviceberry, cottonwood (need a LARGE space).

A Word of Advice: Never, EVER plant any grasses unless you really know what you’re doing. Even native grasses can quickly get out of hand—as I have learned the hard way.

To find out sources of native plants and seeds, check the website of the Montana Native Plant Society. They have lists of resources for every part of the state! If you don’t live in Montana, you probably have your own native plant society you can look up! Here in Missoula, another great resource is Watershed Consulting, which has a wonderful native plant nursery. You can get their list via:

Website: www.mtnativeplants.com; Email:  hello@mtnativeplants.com; Andy Martinez, manager: 406.529.7746

If you can’t find a good source of native plants near you, call up the wonderful Audubon native plant database. There you can just enter your zip code and begin finding the best plants to put in near you. Even better, you can purchase the plants directly from the website.

For another great, and more detailed post, about transforming your yard into habitat, check out Shane Sater’s excellent post on his “Wild for Nature” website!

Crossbill Sunday: the Final Day of Birding Therapy Week

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To wrap up Birding Therapy Week, I leaped onto my bike Sunday morning and pedaled to a spot I’d been sorely neglecting this year: the Missoula Cemetery. One thing that got me through the first year of the pandemic was cycling out there on a regular basis just to see what was flitting around. I’d ended 2020 with a total of 50 species, firmly cementing my position of Cemetery King, and seeing many surprising birds as a result. Braden and I had ventured out there once this winter and been rewarded with a flock of Common Redpolls, but I needed to get out there again before the trees fully leafed out, making it difficult to spot passerines.

As usual, I parked near the entrance to put in my hearing aids, grab a drink of water, and stretch out before beginning my tour. As I tried to loosen my hamstrings, however, I was already hearing some interesting sounds. “Hm . . . maybe Pine Siskins?” That’s when I looked up to see a flock of 20+ Red Crossbills! Not only was this a new sight for the cemetery, just that morning we’d seen our first ever crossbills at our backyard feeder. In fact, this was shaping up to be our best crossbill year yet, and I spent a solid 15 minutes enjoying the cemetery flock, which also contained liberal doses of Pine Siskins and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

The wonky bills of Red Crossbills have evolved to pry open cone scales, allowing the birds’ long tongues to extract the hidden seeds.

Setting off through the tombstones on my bicycle, I wasn’t sure what else I’d find, but encountered other common cemetery birds such as robins, ravens, and flickers, but it was a weird morning, a bit cool and breezy and I began to lose hope that I’d see the unusual passerines I really craved. Turning on to the last access road, however, I stopped to investigate a couple of little birds that turned out to be House Finches. But among them, I spotted a flash of yellow—a Nashville Warbler!  

Two (Yellow-rumped and Nashville) warblers were better than none, but I always can’t help feeling a large place like the Missoula Cemetery should attract many more of the “delicate” species than it does.

Alas, I failed to find any sparrows in the spot I’d seen both Song and White-throated Sparrows before, but I did get my Year Brewer’s Blackbird and a new “location bird”—Turkey Vulture—while racking up a total of 17 species. All of which left me satisfied—but not really.

One thing Braden and I have noticed during the past seven years of birding is how much better many of our public open spaces could be for birds, insects, and other wildlife. The Missoula Cemetery is a great example. I mean, it potentially has everything: lots of land, trees, even a fountain, and the dedicated staff obviously works hard to keep it looking nice. Unfortunately, the place is groomed to death—literally. Dead limbs and trees that could provide insect food for birds are meticulously removed. Messy brush—the stuff many songbirds love—is absolutely not tolerated. I could smell some kind of chemical—weed killer, I’m guessing—emanating from the lawns. Even the fountain where birds could drink is blue from some kind of bleach or detergent in it.

American Robins seem to thrive in almost any urban environment, but many more sensitive species need more habitat—and fewer herbicides & pesticides—than many parks and other open spaces provide.

Sadly, this is a situation that repeats itself over and over across America. Our vision of what is nice, neat, and orderly actually represents an extremely unhealthy environment, one that is undoubtedly harmful to wildlife and perhaps humans as well. No one really is to blame. It’s in our nature to want to make things neat and orderly. However as our knowledge has improved, this is something we as citizens can change. As I wrapped up Birding Therapy Week, I promised myself that I would redouble my efforts both to educate others and perhaps change some of our outdated thinking about both our personal and public open spaces.

Pocatello or Bust

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In our last post, I gave the background story of my newest book, Waiting for a Warbler. The irony is that even as I posted it, Braden and I, like many of you, were impatiently waiting for warblers and other spring migrants to show up—so much so that we jumped the gun and leaped into our intrepid minivan for a 1,000-mile road trip. The trip’s main impetus was to hear Boreal Owls after dusk at Lost Trail Pass on the Montana/Idaho border, and things started well as we picked up an uncommon Eurasian Wigeon near Lee Metcalf NWR on the way down. Alas, despite spending two hours hitting the ski area parking lot and various locations along highway 43, we heard not a single bird—this, despite our friend Nick hearing FIVE Boreal Owls several years ago. Disappointed, but not shocked, we proceeded to Wisdom to spend the night at the comfortable Pioneer Mountain Lodge.

Totally unexpected, this was perhaps our closest look ever at one of our favorite winter birds, American Tree Sparrows, right alongside the road in Wisdom, MT.

Before heading south the next morning, we decided to do a quick tour of Wisdom and were fortunate to spot American Tree Sparrows and a Northern Shrike. Along the highway, our luck continued with great raptor looks, including a ginormous Great Horned Owl sitting on a mile marker next to the road! At the ghost town of Bannack, however, we struck out on Sagebrush Sparrows and Sage Thrashers (still too early) and, after “dipping” on Chukars in Dillon as well, decided to head to Idaho for our first interstate birding in months.

We were especially excited to visit Camas National Wildlife Refuge, but when we arrived, instead of ponds overflowing with waterfowl, we found depressing drying mud with a few determined Canada Geese and Mallards wondering what the heck was going on. We wondered, too, and a little research pointed both to a dry year and, more crucially, a lowered water table caused by over-pumping of groundwater by agricultural interests. This is a situation faced by more and more places in the West and national wildlife refuges seem to be particularly at risk as their budgets for new wells, staff, and infrastructure haven’t nearly kept up with their needs (see the Audubon article “Overwhelmed and Understaffed, Our National Wildlife Refuges Need Help”).

The kind of depressing scenes we found at Camas National Wildlife Refuge are playing out all over the West as human demand for water robs wildlife of essential habitat and resources.

Determined to redeem our day, we pushed on to Pocatello, where we had a delightful hike through juniper forest and saw our Lifer Juniper Titmice. In fact, these wonderful little birds may have ended up being the highlight of our trip as we got to watch them sing, bicker at each other, feed on berries, and generally make the most of life.

Both Braden and I fell in love with Juniper Titmice, described by eBird as “Possibly the plainest bird in North America.”

The next morning we decided to heed Supertramp’s advice and take the long way home through Craters of the Moon National Monument (closed) and Sun Valley. We had a special interest in Sun Valley because another Lifer, Black Rosy-Finch, had been reported there, and as we drove up a long canyon road we wondered if we would again be disappointed as this was the year’s fourth attempt to find this elusive bird. We arrived and . . . no birds. We hung out for several minutes, though, and suddenly heard finchy chirps above us. The rosy-finches! And not just Black, but Gray-crowned, too. It was particularly gratifying to find these gorgeous little passerines both because we’d looked for them many times and because this might well be Braden’s last chance to see them before he heads east for college this summer. The rosy-finches and titmice made the scenic drive home through the Sawtooths especially enjoyable—and a surprise find of a Ruffed Grouse along the highway extra sweet.

Hard to find at best, Black Rosy-Finches are some of North America’s most beautiful passerines. They nest at high altitudes and, not surprisingly, are some of America’s least-studied birds.

Winter Birding in Israel, Part III: Eilat and the Red Sea

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Our condolences to all those affected by the coronavirus—including those forced to cancel their well-earned vacations. We offer some small consolation by traveling to southern Israel to explore amazing birds of the desert and Red Sea. Enjoy, and don’t forget to share this with your birding buddies. Next week: Wadi Rum and Petra.

After our fabulous day in the Hula Valley, I rewarded myself by—you guessed it—catching the flu. Really. Not my first choice, but after a day in bed, Braden and I continued as planned and headed to Jerusalem for three days. The highlights were seeing a Eurasian Hoopoe on the walls of the Old City and grabbing a new Life Bird, Tristram’s Starling, literally on the Western Wall. Then, mostly recovered from my illness, we headed to more fertile birding territory: Eilat and the Red Sea.

The International Birding and Research Center (to the left of the closer salt ponds) and nearby Holland Park offer welcome relief to the hustle and bustle of Eilat.

For those who don’t know it, Eilat is on a major flyway between Africa and Asia and Europe. Some estimates place the number of birds flying through at half a billion per year, and it is especially known for raptor migration. Alas, Braden and I were not visiting during migration, but we still hoped to see some new and cool species. Our first full day there, we caught a cab to the International Birding and Research Center just north of town. The center is on the site of the former city dump and located next to expansive ponds used for salt manufacture. Since 1993, however, the sanctuary has been aggressively rehabilitating the site—something that was still very much in progress when we arrived.

Without a doubt one of our trip’s most spectacular birds, the Green Bee-eater had perched firmly atop our Must See bird list.

In short order we were rewarded with a double-handful of Life Birds, including Common Ringed Plover, a pair of Common Greenshanks, Blackstarts, Bluethroats, a Green Bee-eater, Marsh Sandpiper, Rock Martin, House Crow, Long-legged Buzzard, and Braden’s Bird of the Day, a Great Gray Shrike! As a bonus, four Greater Flamingos lounged in a salt pond in the distance.

While there, one of the center’s guides confidentially told us that even better birding might be had at a place called Holland Park, a short mile or so walk away. Braden and I set off through the desert—only to end up at a kibbutz nowhere near the park! Some nice kibbutzniks straightened us out, so we resumed our hot march south along the highway. And that turned out to be a great thing because right next to the road, we spotted our only Hooded Wheatears of the trip.

This Hooded Wheatear introduced us to a totally new group of delightful birds that we’d only been vaguely aware of before the trip.

Holland Park. What can I say? I think this may be my favorite birding location of the entire trip. Hiking up a dry wadi filled with interesting native plants, Braden and I quickly left the bustle of Eilat behind and felt like we were in authentic habitat. We found only two additional Lifers—Sand Partridge and Mourning Wheatear—but the Blackstarts, Palestinian Sunbirds, Sardinian Warblers and other birds kept us plenty entertained. And our day’s birding hadn’t quite finished.

Israel’s extensive development of its tiny Red Sea shoreline doesn’t leave much room for wildlife, but these shorebirds found refuge behind a fence in a shipping yard. Center are two Common Ringed Plovers. Lower and Upper Left are Kentish Plovers, with Little Stints in between.

That afternoon, Braden cajoled me into taking a walk from our hotel along the Red Sea so that we could look for White-eyed Gulls. We found them, but also happened upon a huge group of Kentish and Common Ringed Plovers, Little Stints, and Dunlins huddled down against a stiff afternoon wind blowing up from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. All in all, it was an amazing day of birding—and far from the last of our trip.

All photos and text on FatherSonBirding.com are strictly protected under U.S. copyright law. To request permission to use, contact Sneed at sbcollardiii+2@gmail.com.

Five Valleys, Many Birds

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On Saturday, April 20th, my dad and I headed out to Five Valleys Land Trust’s Rock Creek Property, our truck full of plants and shovels. I had completed my Eagle Scout Project on this property last year. For my project I had planted about 30 native plants in an enclosure, on a part of the property dominated mainly by invasive grasses and the grasshoppers that fed on them.

We brought five cottonwoods to replace dead plants and to our surprise only used three of them—the majority of our plants were healthy! We planted the other two trees inside Five Valleys’ much larger enclosure, where about thirty volunteers had gathered to weed the area around the large pond.

Braden planting a new cottonwood to replace the few winter mortalities in his Eagle project. The project should create awesome habitat for birds in coming years.

As we finished putting our trees in, I heard an obnoxious call. I looked up to see an excited tuxedo-colored bird with bright pink legs—a Black-necked Stilt! We knew it was shorebird migration season, but we hadn’t expected to see anything, let alone a rare Western Montana migrant! On the pond we also tallied three Ruddy Ducks, another Year Bird.

We then put down our tools and picked up our binoculars to wander the edges of the property, where all the best habitat was. At the Clark Fork River, we found a large flock of migrating swallows zipping inches above the water. The main members of the flock were Tree and Violet-Green, but we also managed to spot some rarities: a few Northern Rough-winged Swallows, one Barn and one Cliff! The day was already shaping up to be a rare one.

Lincoln’s Sparrows are always a surprise in Montana, and we were lucky to see a migration pair out at Rock Creek.

Next we explored the flooded riparian area in the back of the property. We had seen a Pacific Wren and several Ruby-crowned Kinglets here in the fall, as well as our first Yellow-rumped Warbler of 2018, so we excitedly scanned the shrubs and trees. Sure enough, movement caught our eye. Two Lincoln’s Sparrows foraged in the brush, another great spring pick-up! As we reached the very edge of what Five Valleys owned, we flushed two Green-winged Teals that had been hiding along the shore.

As we made our way back to the car, I spotted movement in a patch of trees up ahead. Upon further investigation, we discovered a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and a brilliant male Yellow-rumped Warbler, both firsts for the year. They hung out in a large mixed flock that also included White- and Red-breasted Nuthatches and Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees. But the flock wasn’t done. Suddenly, a bright dandelion-yellow bird hopped into view. It danced through the branches in front of us, displaying its light gray head, white eye-ring, yellow throat and red cap. It was our best look ever at a Nashville Warbler!

Rain prevented us from getting any good bird photos, but the birds cooperated for some great viewing!

Back at the barn, we ate with the volunteers, led by Jenny Tollefson, who was also my Five Valleys Eagle project contact. We had put in good work and been rewarded with epic finds. I could only imagine what the property would become when the plants I and others had put in grew up to create even more habitat for the birds of the area.