Birds & Bugs - It's so much more

Female blackpoll warbler and a spider
Photo by Christina Evans with permission

I find that there is a great awakening among gardeners about the importance of invertebrates to birds. This new awareness is largely attributed to the writings of Dr. Doug Tallamy and his book Bringing Nature Home. National groups like the Audubon Society that once virtually ignored native plants and landscapes have now adopted an entire public outreach program designed to make landscapes better for birds. Thirty years ago, I was rarely offered a chance to speak to groups like these. That has changed. Social media groups are now flourishing - built up by an interest in native plants, pollinators, and the need to make major changes to the way we landscape. All of this is exciting, but I am also frustrated that the focus of so many of these initiatives falls short of the mark. The goal of creating a truly living landscape, like I am trying to do here in Holiday, Florida, is to create habitat and habitat is much more than food and food is much more than invertebrates.
Many seem to now be aware that nestling birds require large numbers of invertebrates to fledge. Even hummingbirds rely almost solely on tiny insects to feed their young. Landscapes that create conditions for invertebrates to thrive are an absolute necessity in the living landscape equation. It's just that we need to focus beyond this part of the equation if we are going to be really successful.
If we only look at invertebrates, it should become obvious that they exist everywhere in a living landscape. They are not just caterpillars and even caterpillars are not confined to the 10 "powerhouse" trees and shrubs. Caterpillars are everywhere. Some of them are feeding on native grasses and wildflowers and some of them are crawling about in the understory. Invertebrates of all kinds feed nestling birds. It is certainly true that oaks, as a genus, serve as host plants for a wide variety of butterflies and moths, but we can't stop there. My passionvines produce large numbers of caterpillars as well. Maybe not as many species as an oak does, but birds are not gourmands..... They just need numbers, not variety.
We maximize caterpillars by maximizing the diversity of plants in our landscape. Many studies have shown this. We choose plants that serve as host plants for something and we increase invertebrate diversity by increasing plant diversity in our landscape itself. Trees with shaggy bark, like pines, provide invertebrates a place to hide. Maples, with their smooth bark do not. They are inherently different trees for this purpose - not to denigrate maples. My leaf litter provides conditions that feed countless numbers and varieties of invertebrates. These meet the needs of a great many species of wildlife too often not considered in a discussion of creating wildlife-friendly landscapes.
Truth be told, the most important part of the overall equation is the avoidance of pesticides. Flowers of all kinds attract pollinators. A great many native plants serve as a host plant to something. None of it makes any difference in a landscape that gets treated with pesticides.
The part that gets overlooked far too often, however, is that a landscape needs to provide habitat. Dr. Tallamy skirts that almost completely in his wonderful book, referenced above. If we were only to look at birds (and ignore all the other groups of life forms), we would understand that birds require food all year - or for the part of the year they are resident. That goes well beyond invertebrates, for once the young have fledged the vast majority switch their diets to one largely based on fruits, seeds, and other things. Insects, even here in Florida, are mostly dormant during winter months. Bluebirds switch to small fruits; yellow-rumped warblers and tree swallows mostly consume the fruit of wax myrtles (Morella cerifera - fka Myrica cerifera); finches feed extensively on grass seed. Even those that feed on insects supplement their diet with fruit and seeds and the insects they find are under bark and leaf litter - not on the foliage. It is not enough to concern ourselves only with the needs of nesting birds. We need to provide them food throughout the year.
The equation also needs to consider water and cover. I will defer the water variable in this equation to a later post and only touch on cover briefly here at this time. It does no good if a nesting bird cannot find a suitable nest site in your landscape. Different birds that might nest on your property have different nest site requirements. A cardinal needs dense shrubs no taller than about 10 feet, while a blue jay nests in the canopy of a taller tree. Cover is more than nesting, however. Birds need hiding and escape cover, they need a suitable spot to sing from during mating season, the cover they need in winter is different than what they need in the spring and early summer.
As I try to make this former turfgrass lawn into something that sustains life, I've considered all of these things. I can't possibly provide habitat for everything that might live here, but I have made conscious decisions about the habitat required for the species I most want to assist. We need to broaden our concept of landscaping more than we have in the past if we are to make a difference. Part of that expansion requires us to consider a much broader understanding of habitat, to go beyond the simplistic concepts of food and pollinator gardens and look at the whole of the landscapes we are trying to create. It's a bit more complicated, perhaps, but it will yield much broader results.