Nature Scoop January 2022
American Flicker in my Heated Birdbath
I saw a dead rat in the middle of the street near my yard. A large Turkey Vulture ate the entire rat, leaving no trace. Rats are larger than mice or voles and have a thicker tail. They are nocturnal, non-native and from Norway. They usually live in packs found in sewers or under buildings. We find them eating out of trash and around dumpsters. Workers sometimes disturb the pack's habitat, as they did in my case working on sewer pipes about a mile away. The rat pack breaks up, running out to find homes separately. A rat may come to your yard looking for food and shelter. To avoid having a rat come into your home, seal and block small openings to all heights of the house and garage.
Take in pet food, use seed catchers for bird seed, remove fallen veggies or fruits, keep food out of compost and remove anything else that would attract a rat. Keep your garage door shut at night. Be vigilant. Look for holes in the ground and rat droppings. If a rat burrows into our gardens or under our brush piles, dig the burrow out including all the entrance holes. Scare it away when it is there. Use a motion sensor that turns on water, sound or light. My husband scared a rat out of our brush pile a few years ago by yelling and waving a shovel at it. It ran, and he chased it. It never came back. Please avoid rat poison. Rats are slowly killed and live for five to seven days carrying the poison in their system. Anything that eats a sick or dead rat, like my Turkey Vulture did, will become ill or die. Read more information here.
A native cultivar is a plant artificially created by a grower cross-breeding native plants that are different in some way (color, height, etc.) than the pure native plant. A native cultivar of the pure native Black-eyed Susan called 'Goldsturm' (Rudbeckia fulgida "Goldsturm") in Donna VanBuecken's yard attracted only invasive, non-native European House sparrows to eat its seeds. The native birds ate pure native seeds (plants with no quotations in the name). In this video, watch insects feeding on native goldenrod and native spotted jewelweed, but ignoring the cultivar 'Goldsturm'. This is an example of how cultivars (those plants with a name in quotes) often don't provide the wildlife value that pure native plants do. Wildlife often cannot get to the nectar, which is usually less nutritious, and some cultivars are sterile, producing no seeds for wildlife.
Let's look before we step on fresh snow to see which critters are using our yards as their habitat. Here are photos of common animal tracks and tips for identifying them from the National Wildlife Federation. The first two blank pictures have been replaced with links to better photos on iNaturalist.
Good news: Volunteers in Michigan planted a community garden filed with 1,300 native wildflowers. Be inspired by how it happened.
- Brush snow away from leaves so birds can scratch around to find winter food
- Put cover over the tops of bird feeders to keep seed dry and accessible and use a soft brush to clean snow off the edges of heated bird baths
- When the ground is frozen, a robin's soft beak cannot get to worms beneath the surface. It is also difficult for robins to crack seed shells, and the berries they look for in winter are now scarce or frozen. To help the robins, put ice-free water 10 to 15 feet from cover and feed them sunflower seeds with the hulls removed, dried cranberries (or other dried fruits except raisins because raisins and grapes are toxic to dogs and cats that might be in the area) and/or broken-up pieces of suet on the ground
- Birds may use up to 75-80% of their fat reserves in one winter night. They switch from using bird feeders as supplemental food to their critical source of food. If you don't normally feed birds, consider putting high-fat food spread on the ground or on top of frozen snow during the freezing temperatures. If you do feed, consider adding extra feeders
- Feeding birds in winter
- Don't Forget Water for Birds in the Winter
- Always observe wildlife from a distance that is safe and comfortable for them. Use binoculars, scope, camera with zoom lens or a blind (i.e., your window)
- Do not feed mammals food scraps because they become less afraid of humans and may cause unwanted, dangerous interactions with other people
- Don't be alarmed that hawks must eat some birds in order to survive the winter
- Don't recycle plastic bags because they get caught in recycling sorting machines. Return them to recycle bins found at most grocery stores. Best to use paper and re-usable fabric bags
- Try putting a stick through the suet in a wire holder to make a perch for Robins when they cannot get berries or worms
- In freezing weather, consider adding a rock to the center of a heated bird bath so that birds can drink without getting wet
- Birds only eat glossy, black, clean thistle, so keep it fresh. When refilling the feeder, put the thistle seed from the bottom on the top so it doesn't get old
- Plan for spring: Learn what you can plant to save Butterflies and Moths in your county. Click on the pull down for moth or butterfly, then your country; then a box will appear with a pull down for state and then another appears for county. Click on the links to see information about the pollinator, including photos, ID details, which plants their caterpillar eats (called caterpillar hosts) and which nectar plants the butterfly eats (called adult food)
- How to plan your yard to pass a weed inspection - A real life story and guide
- Planning for our gardens: don't forget the neighbors
- Tropical milkweed has a higher toxicity level than native milkweed. Tropical milkweed appears to increase in toxicity level when it is in warmer temperatures. In research, more monarchs survived on native milkweed in ambient temperatures than on tropical milkweed in warmer temperatures. The OE spore, which becomes a contagious parasite that infects monarchs, thrives on tropical milkweed in the south in winter
- We can convert a dead or dying tree into a snag for wildlife. Dead wood makes space for bird and carpenter bee nests, food storage and other wildlife needs
- Native Plant lists by region for pollinating wasps
- Planning for spring, how we can help Lightning Bugs (Fireflies)
- Consider adding a Hedgerow, scroll down through article
- Stormwater Ponds: Buffers and Native Plants - See bottom of p. 3
- Plan to attract Hummingbirds and Orioles with these tips for different regions
- If you notice Eastern Gray Squirrels chasing each other and being more acrobatic than usual; it's because they breed in late winter and early summer (Dec-Jan and May-June in Ohio)
- The Young Forest Project: First Steps Toward Improving a Property for Wildlife
- How to Protect Wildlife from Light Pollution in Our Yards (1 minute video)
- Mayor's Monarch Pledge registration is open from Dec 1 - March 31
- Consider joining our Native Plant Societies and Wild Ones Chapters
- We can help save forests by purchasing furniture from retailers who are committed to responsible wood sourcing. See retailers' scores. Here are sustainable products
Please send your backyard conservation educational event with a link the month prior to the registration deadline (e.g. May 1 for June issue)
- Would you please email me if your group would like to schedule a ZOOM presentation by a National Wildlife Federation certified Habitat Ambassador at no cost?
Other Ohio Nature Events
Please send your backyard conservation educational event with a link the month prior to the registration deadline (e.g. May 1 for June issue)
- Mycorrhiazae Fungi: What You Need to Know, sponsored by Ohio Woodland Stewards Program, Recorded Webinar
- From July to the following June or when they run out, Ohio DNR provides Wild School Site Grants for schools or teaching organizations to start a wildlife habitat or outdoor classroom. ODNR also provides consultants to help teachers with planning
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