Nature Scoop January 2023
Cardinal drinking in my bird bath
Skunks are smarter than most of us think and deserve our respect. A reader, Sue, took photos of a striped skunk using a small rock as a tool to break ice in a water bowl to get a drink. She captured her discovery with a motion-detector trail camera overnight in Colorado. She posted this behavior on her Twitter page, @CameraTrapSue, and scientists quickly learned about her discovery through social media. Read more about her discovery in this paper. Sue's photos were also in Discover magazine. Social media can make a positive impact for nature. Share photos of native plants, birds, butterflies, bees and other backyard wildlife in your yard on social media to encourage others to create habitats in their yards.
Readers who need or like to garden with containers can plant keystone native plants. We don't need to have a yard to help wildlife. There are certified wildlife habitats on balconies in New York. Use the largest containers (especially depth) you can find so there's room for the taproots. If you live where it gets cold in the north, use plastic containers so the containers will expand and contract with the temperature changes and not break. If you select plants that grow tall, support them with a wall, stake, trellis or hoop when they start to grow. Keep the plants outside so that they can go through the natural temperature changes. If the plant gets root bound and you can't plant it in the ground, give it to someone who can. More tips.
Tomatoes, blueberries, eggplants, cranberries, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins and some 20,000 flowering plants need buzz-pollination from our native bees. European Honeybees cannot perform buzz-pollination. These plants need the buzzing of native bees to open and expose their pollen. See a slow-motion video of buzz-pollination. To save native bees, select native plants that flower from spring through fall. Click here.
Good news: Native gardens and green spaces in cities can provide a number of benefits. These include: faster healing, reduced ailments such as high blood pressure and diabetes, increased coping and learning capacity, promotion of a sense of community and self-esteem and, in some cases, reduced crime. Be inspired.
- 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 seed chips with the shells 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. Try putting a stick through the suet in a wire holder to make a perch for Robins
- Feeding birds in 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
- How to plan your yard to pass a weed inspection - A real life story and guide
- Avoid planting artificially in-bred native plants called native cultivars (plants with quotations in the name) because wildlife often cannot get to the nectar, which is usually less nutritious, and some native cultivars are sterile, producing no seeds for wildlife
- Plant native milkweed for monarchs. The OE spore, which becomes a contagious parasite that kills monarchs, thrives on Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) in the south in 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
- How to Protect Wildlife from Light Pollution in Our Yards
(1 minute video)
- See if your department of natural resources (or equivalent) has a Private Land Biologist to help you manage your land for wildlife conservation and find reimbursement programs
- 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)
- Although you may not normally feed birds, they need extra help to survive the freezing weather. One way to help (if you don't have feeders) is to spread high-fat food on the ground or on top of snow, like black-oil sunflower seed chips (without a shell), peanuts and suet
- 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
- In freezing weather, consider adding a rock to the center of a heated bird bath so that birds can drink without getting wet
- Identify animal tracks in the snow. The first two blank pictures have been replaced with links below
- Consider adding a Hedgerow, scroll down through article
- Native Plant lists by region for pollinating wasps - scroll down
- Planning for our gardens: don't forget the neighbors
- To exclude rats, avoid rat poison which kills anything that eats the rat. Seal and block small openings to your house, take in pet food, use seed catchers for bird seed, keep food out of compost and remove anything else that would feed a rat. If a rat burrows into your garden, dig the burrow out including all the entrance holes
- Stormwater Ponds: Buffers and Native Plants - See bottom of p. 3
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)
- 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
- 1/24, Ohio's Timber Rattlesnake, Columbus Audubon, Columbus
- Non-native Invasive Forest Pests and Sentinels, Recorded Webinar sponsored by Woodland Stewards
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