Adult Birds Need Food Too


 A lot has been written and reposted a great many times about the importance of caterpillars to the success of nesting birds. There is no doubt that the vast majority of songbirds rely on them to feed and fledge their nestlings. I have planted my landscape to do just that.  For the most part, it has been done with my butterfly plants as my woody species are still too small to attract the attention of most butterflies and moths. The neighbor behind me has several mature live oaks (Quercus virginiana) and a large sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), so I have these as well. I have left several snags alone that overhang my back fence and I suspect that these are valuable to the downy and red-bellied woodpeckers that visit my landscape daily. Invertebrates of all kinds - from spiders to earthworms have been encouraged here and the fact that I do not use a lawn company to spray by lawn means that there are things like mole crickets beneath the turf. As a renter, I am required to keep some of the grass I inherited. It is not nearly as bad as some might state. The white and glossy ibis, for example, search it daily for this type of food. Turf is not as evil as some would have you believe. It is the way most of us manage it that is ecologically unsound.

Since I've added a bird feeder, I have also discovered another truth that is new to me. Adult birds and their fledglings also need food and it is not caterpillars at this stage. I have a newly created cavity in a dead branch of the camphor tree in my front yard and a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers are making their best attempt at parenthood right now. They will feed their nestlings with invertebrates, but they also need a great deal of nourishment to pull this off. They do this by regularly visiting my feeders. It takes a great amount of energy to forage for their young and every caterpillar they might need to feed themselves takes away from the food they might bring their young. My feeders provide that essential and reliable energy. At the beginning of the nesting season, birds like tufted titmice and Carolina chickadees largely disappeared from my feeders, but they are back now and they are bringing their fledglings. The common and boat-tailed grackles are doing the same. It is obvious now to me how important this easy-to-access food is as they start life out as independent birds.

My landscape is still too immature to provide much of this type of food naturally. I have no doubt that most would survive trying to find it in my neighborhood, but I remain an oasis in a desert of nonnative landscape plants. The fact that they can forage safely for a reliable, nutrient-rich food likely makes a great deal of difference to their survival. 

Habitat is more than simply plants; it is a bit more complex than that and it is certainly much more complex than simply planting from a list of the "10 Best Trees" as seducing as that might be. Simple messages are simply that most times - too simple. My landscape is composed of native (and a few nonnative) plants that have specific ecological value, but it takes years for such a thing to develop into a mature community. As it does, my feeders are much more than an enjoyable place to watch birds. They are there to bridge the gap between fledging and independence and they are a necessary element in keeping the parents in the best of health while they are raising their offspring.




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