cc >> Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm happy to be here. It's
you potential gardeners a plefor birds here.ll of
Just to give you a little background about myself.
I am the author of the book Birdscaping in the Midwest, and,
previously, I was the director
years. And after I of the Wehr Nature Center for 18
even more involved in organizations for both birds and
native plants. I'm
Audubon in my community, and, also, I just started the Kettle
Moraine chapter of Wild Ones, a natural landscaping organization
that I highly recommend if
plants. They have a you'rchapter right heretive
in Madison, and they have a booth out there if you're
interested. So, let me get on with the
program then. I'm going to be speaking about
landscaping, birdscaping, in
particularly, in Wisconsin. Many our area in the Midwest and,
this time of year. I do too.
I love bird feeding, but the
birds and the greatest variety best way to attract the most
birds. There are many of bireasons for this.pe for
There we go. There are
never come to your a lot of birds that
This is the hermit thrush here, one of our earliest migrants.
I guess I have to be over here. Okay.
Also, our warblers rarely,
In fact, just a very small if ever, come to feeders.
feeders. As you can percentsee here, the topcome to
circle there represents our North American bird species.
There are over 900 varieties of birds in our country, but only
11% of them ever
Also, and as you look at the come to feeders.
lot of variety of birds, some bothat wouldn't come to your a
feeders otherwise, by landscaping for them with native
plants. For example,
says Nowaks, that represents our the circle that
acre property in Greendale, yarda suburb of Milwaukee.urth
We attracted over 80 different
only about a third ever speciecame to our feeders.them,
The rest were attracted by our landscaping.
Likewise, with the next one that
yard of the late Craig Tufts who says Tufts, that represents the
the National was the chief naturalist with
And he had an acre property, and Wildlife Federation.
birds on his property coming to his feeders of the 99 birds that
he did see on his property. So, again, he was able to
attract far more birds with the right landscaping that creates
the habitats that birds need. Even those birds that come,
typically, to our feeders, like the chickadee, only get a very
small proportion. 21% in
and that was documented right here in Wisconsin by researchers
at the UW Madison university. They checked out chickadees for
several years, and they found they only came for, as I said,
about one-fifth of their food.
gleaning shrubs and twigs for little caterpillars and eggs and
other invertebrates. In this
do harbor insects in the winter, case, the sumac berries
will occasionally take a berry, abut they're primarily insect
eaters. It's very import to save large
landscapes for birds
As you well know, the loss of habitat is the greatest threat
to our birds and wildlife.
filled with blazing star in the south Kettle Moraine near where
I live now. So there are
the need such large territories. birds, for example,
up to 15 acres, as you see Meadow larks up here might need
fledglings. However, here, to raise a family of its
other birds that there are a lot of
Baltimore oriole does very well on a larger property or in a
neighborhood. Those are the kinds of birds
that we can attract to our own
and we need to have this yards by landscaping for them,
over because we're losing opso much to urbanization andall
industrialization and even
matter. And here's a industrial farming for that
right in Greenfield, a very small property
And you can see it has lovely flowers that will offer nectar
for hummingbirds
It will attract insects for insect-eating birds, a little
shelter for the birds, and then seeds for birds later in the
year. And the entire
is larger, is also landscaped for birds and wildlife.
This is the home of Greg Septon,
the coordinator of the Peregrine whom some of you may known as
Wisconsin, and he has oak savanna, as you can see that
beautiful oak in his front yard,
backyard. This is where and we lived for over the
30 years in Greendale, a suburb of Milwaukee, and, as you can
see there, we built our house and we first grass there, as you
can see, on each side of our new home there.
And we did maintain a lawn
eventually, we realized that for a number of years, but,
habitat there. And our we wanted to have a wildlife
sunniest so that's where we put our prairie, as you see here.
Here's another view of it. We did retain a little bit of
lawn in the front which helped
each side of us and made it look integrate it with the lawns on
In addition, I like to tell people that we sold our house in
one week to people who
And, also, Money Magazine, a few loved our landscaping.
or eliminating your lawn and years ago, said that by reducing
native plants, you can increase pthe value of your home by 10%.
So I encourage you
What do we do to the front to do the front.
fertilize it, right? We exnever use our front lawns.nd
There's a lot of other values to
lfor birds. Less time mowing.s
Of course, you're all aware of
here is that there's that, but the important point
Those small engines, like lawn less pollution.
like our car engines, so they moemit a lot more pollution.ed
The University of California
years ago said that mowing Berkeley health newsletter a few
equivalent to jogging in smog. with a machine like that is
lawn. There's also So for your health, reduce your
you may well know. This is less watering, as
mine in Greendale, and that path, of course, is just regular
lawn grass. And you can see that it's
starting to get a little brown. This is a picture taken in the
mid-summer, kind
But look how vibrant the native plants that she has, the greens
of those plants are much
the vibrant flowers, of course brighter than the lawn, and also
survive very well in dryer times they have the deep roots and can
native plants are so you established. Oops.r once
The second greatest threat after
problem with invasive plants. And honeysuckle, pretty as it
is, is one of our big invasives.
birds, but those berries don't It does provide berries for the
can't offer the variety of those have the nutrition, and you
that our native native plants can offer.he year
In addition, honeysuckle
woodlands where it's rampant. There was a study in Ohio that
said that it reduced the
This, of course, affects the growth of trees by 53%.
of a woodland or forest. And, biin fact, studies have shownat
that the Acadian Flycatcher is
honeysuckle growth in woodlands. one that is quite affected by
honeysuckle is that Thit harbors ticks.ut
Studies in both Maine and Missouri have found that in
woodlands with lots of
ticks, so they believe that this honeysuckle there are a lot more
of Lyme disease. So even could be a factor in the spread
good to get rid of some foof these invasives.t's
One other problem with
that when birds with a little hyellow coloring feed on theis
berries while they're molting or
feathers as a fledgling, the when they're first growing their
color. As you see tailthe tail there, therent
normal tail of the cedar waxwing
many honeysuckle berries, isits tail can become orange.oo
I've seen a few in Wisconsin but
east. And while we don't know if
that's harmful to the birds,
because birds depend so much on color for their mate selection
and for recognition of
This also happened to some species and so forth.
Warblers with yellow of the warblers, by the way.
Buckthorns, of course, many of you know is another huge
invasive in our area. And a study at Morton Arboretum,
I bet some of you went down to, it's just south in Illinois.
At the Morton Arboretum they did
buckthorn and honeysuckle and also in native shrubs, and they
found that the birds nesting in the buckthorn and honeysuckle
here much more preyed upon by raccoons and cats and so forth,
and one of the reasons, they
thicker branches lower down, and think, is because they had
lower down. They the nests of the birds were then
there, apparently, but it made thought they were safe
So that's one problem. Of becourse, another big problemrs.
with buckthorn is it doesn't
caterpillars that might harborproduce butterflies.e, no
And also, caterpillars are a
Garlic mustard is the third big pinvasive in our area, and I'm.
sure almost all of you
What you may not know about, are aware of that.
invasive and wipes out all besides the fact that it's so
It's an herbaceous plant. It of our understory plants.
butterfly in some areas. The has also extirpated a native
the Mustard White. That nis not the Cabbage Whited
that we find in our gardens.
caterpillar and butterfly. That is, actually, European
native butterfly that feeds on But the Mustard White is a
family. But when it our nadoesn't have those,mustard
it will try to lay its eggs on
grubs can't feed on the gait successfully.t the
It has enzymes that they can't digest.
So we've lost that butterfly in some areas, and I've heard it's
extirpated in Illinois. We
area near me, and that is a snature conservancy propertye
called Lulu Lake where they've
while ago. So I do gotten rid of garlic mustard a
good to get rid of that plant. think that it would be
this, perhaps making it worse Tthan the others, is that theret
is a chemical in the roots of this plant that kills the soil
fungi that plants need to grow. And this is considered like
sterilizing the soil, and this
years. They don't steknow yet because it's for
a fairly new discovery. It was
discoveries of the year by considered one of the top
ago. So, another bad thing about
that. Cats are also invasive.
And I have to tell
We've had two cats you, I love cats.
And this is our own pet cat, for many years.
killing birds and other small mammals that are native, the cat
is not native to our area, it is
they are invasive. And not native to our ecosystems, so
veterinary organizations suggest as you well know, most
their own sake. They that you keep cats indoors for
accidents, they don't pick up diseases, and they're better for
our kids. They don't contaminate
sandboxes. So a lot of
those cats indoors, and there's been studies across the nation
in different states. Cats have killed millions and
millions of birds and, in some
rare species of birds, including states, even endangered or quite
hummingbird lovers out there. Now, you've gotten rid of the
invasives and you're ready to plant your habitat for the
birds. One of the first things you're
going to want to do, of course, is to plant species that will
provide food for the birds: berries, insects, seeds, and so
forth. And those same plants can offer
cover and nesting sites for the birds.
Finally, you want to add some water to your landscape.
We've lost 50% of our wetlands in Wisconsin.
So it's a good idea to offer a
guess from this picture, little water, and as you might
They love the sound of water, and you'll attract many more
birds if you have a little
you another pond later on. dripper like this or I'll show
that's another good feature Bto add to your birdscape.d
Cup plant is one of those wonderful native plants that
offer all three things to the birds.
It's a big, bushy plant so it will offer shelter for the
birds. If you can see those leaves down
there, they form a little cup,
water for a bit for little and after rain they'll retain
In addition, those beautiful birds and butterflies.
hummingbirds, and then the seeds flowers offer nectar for
and other seed-loving birds. are just loved by goldfinches
mention to you because I know Tsome of you who know the cupt
plant might say it's a little invasive so we don't really like
it that much, but I've never
planted it in both of my yards. fWe've since moved from thatI
Greendale home. But you might want to watch it
or make sure it doesn't take over.
It's a wonderful plant for the
wherever you might put it because it is quite tall but a
very lovely one. And birds
other, this is in the Silphium love it as well as the
other Silphiums. Birds genus, and there's a number of
So there's a lot of good reasons love Silphium seeds.
There's more birds in wareas with native plants..
There was actually a study done in a city where one half of the
city had a lot more native
more cultivated, non-native pplants, and there were mored
birds in the part of the
There's more nectar in native citplants, so if you wantts.
hummingbirds, plant those natives and they will have more
nectar and be better
As I told you before, the nests in the natives are less apt to
be preyed upon, as that study in Morton Arboretum showed.
Incidentally, there were some other studies too that showed
that. Excuse me a minute.
There are more insects for birds
insects are important for in our fledgling birds.nd
96% of land birds depend on insects to feed their birds.
And they particularly like caterpillars.
And so we want to make sure that our birds have that.
And even though you encourage native plants with the insects,
there have been studies that
wrote the book Bringing Nature Dr. Tallamy, Doug Tallamy, who
his students did some studies and there was only 3% damage on
the leaves of native plants in native landscapes.
And that's comparable to what you would get in a cultivated
plant yard. There's more
birds with natives. You can plant a great variety,
and I'll show you just with fruits how you can plant fruit
for nearly the whole
Natives sustain many other species.
When you're planting for birds, you're actually planting for the
entire community of wildlife: butterflies, bats, even small
mammals. And the good thing for gardeners
is that natives are easier to grow.
They're well adapted to our winters, our summers, our soils,
and even to the insects.
against insects so They do have their defenses
So now I'm just going to they're not over-eaten.
seasons. That's what talk about food through the
your yard, a whole smorgasbord you want to plan for
the seasons. Berries of food for the birds through
number of berry-eating birds. Here are some of the ones that
you can plant for late spring and early summer: chokecherry
and serviceberry. For summer you can see that
there's a blackberry, blueberry,
gooseberry, elderberry, braspberry, and red mulberry.,
And all of those plants, except for the chokecherry, you can eat
yourselves. So you can
cereal in the morning and leave some for the birds.
And you're sure to find several that will do very well in your
yard no matter what your
a variety to choose from. cLikewise, with those that areh
available in fall and winter. The winter ones, by the way, are
all available in late fall too. However, they tend to keep their
berries longer, and that's why I
because they'll last longer. have them listed under winter
several vine berries. American bittersweet, grape,
Virginia creeper, for example.
there too: the chokeberry, But there are some shrubs in
And the carrion flower is more dogwood, and viburnum.
There are several species. For like a vine, too, in most cases.
a great variety too. Crabapple, winthackberry, Hawthorn,ave
juniper shrubs, mountain ash, red cedar, rose, sumac,
viburnum, and winterberry. I
because some of the viburnums lose their berries quite quickly
to the birds and wildlife in the
their berries longer. So, fall,you can see you couldretain
certainly find a good shrub or
yard. Of course, seeds are also
important for birds, and the
provide seeds is to have some native wildflowers and native
grasses for the birds.
goldfinch feeding Thon some seeds here.red
Other ways to provide seeds, of course, there are shrubs and
trees that provide
Nectar, of course, we all want seeds for the birds.
flowers for the thummingbirds. And insects.
Again, I want to emphasize how
though you want to attract important insects are, and even
birds will keep them in check. insects to a native landscape,
up to 300 little caterpillars Blulike that each day to itsfeed
fledglings when they're nesting.
control. And then we So that's quite a good natural
We want them too, right? Leaf litter is a great way to
provide insects for the birds.
birds, like this white-throated sparrow and thrashers and so
forth, will grub around in
catch the little beetles and leaves like that and they'll
will feed on. And so ants and other things that they
leaves. At least don't rake up all those
some areas of your yard. And leave some lying in
and improve the soil too. ofAnd you want to avoidown
pesticides. You don't want to kill or poison
the very foods you
Here I want to also cover cover nesting in sites and give you a
few tips on that. One thing to consider is to have
a variety of levels of
As you can see here, we have the vegetation in your landscape.
herbaceous species below, and tthere are birds that likehe
different levels of the canopy, higher or lower, or they might
like the shrubs or
One example, for example, tis the thrasher.
Now that's a bird that actually likes different levels depending
on the time of its life cycle.
its territory or trying to In the spring when its declaring
in the trees. However, attract a mate, it sings high up
shrub-loving bird, and it nest it is basically a
ground, and it feeds in the shrubs or even on the
Evergreens are a great thing to add to your landscape too to
have at least a few evergreens
Good shelter for the birds. And some birds are adapted
especially to evergreens like this pine siskin, one of our
winter finches that comes down
the pine siskin, as its name in the winter to our area, and
feeds on the seeds and pine scones and other conifers.it
Evergreens are also nice for spring birds.
Here is a Tennessee warbler who found little shelter in a red
cedar in my yard as it's migrating through.
And also I've noticed that the
nest in my evergreens early in robins, for example, like to
trees and shrubs are leafed out. spring before the deciduous
birds to look for So itconifers for nesting.esting
Thorny shrubs or trees are a
too. The birds are a little more
protected from predators in a thorny tree like this Hawthorn,
and both Hawthorns and
flowers which will attract crabapples have lovely spring
your oriole, Baltimore oriole. insects for the birds, like this
that they get wonderful Anberries later in the year.w
Dead and fallen trees are valuable in your landscape.
As they decay, they'll be attracting insects that help
with the decay, and, in turn, that will attract birds like
wrens and woodpeckers and so forth.
And, of course, as they decay they'll enrich your soil.
So keep some of those dead and
Dead standing trees, or snags as fallen trees in your landscape.
very important to about 50 they're sometimes called, are
birds. Woodpeckers, differof course, love theestern
dead trees as they build
This redheaded woodpecker, he'll their cavities in them.
but then other years, other cavity-loving birds who may not
be able to make their own cavities will use that cavity.
The wood duck will use the
woodpecker, the capileated woodpecker.t
It is a cavity-nesting duck.
for those cavities to develop in And here, while you're waiting
can put up boxes. And here your trees or your snags, you
you can see the female checking out the box with the drake high
above on the branch there. They have nested for a number of
years in our yard. And
immensely with bluebird boxes and bluebird trails, as you've
probably heard of. There
bluebirds might go extinct in the 1950s because of various
causes, but bluebird societies
these boxes and trails and were started and they put up
In fact, Wisconsin produces at they are doing very well now.
year now, and it's one of the ltop, in fact I think it is the
top state for producing fledglings of bluebirds every
year. So we should
the fact that we have a lot of be very proud of
are doing that. Of bluebird enthusiasts here that
nesting boxes. This one coudidn't nest in ourowl
yard, but this little screech owl roosted in here all winter
long, and it would come out on
front of the box every night that little stub there in the
degrees, looking almost like it would turn its head completely
around, as you know, and then it would fly off for a night of
hunting. It was nice
owl every night that year. to see that little
[LAUGHTER] Cute as it is,.
this is what you do not want. This is a good illustration of
how raccoons are predators, and we do have our boxes, our
birdhouses and so forth on
So I do suggest posts and guards below the boxes to keep
predators out. Now, I talked a little bit about
water. Here's a bluebird taking a
little bath in our birdbath.
water gardens as they're Also, you can consider ponds, or
This is one my husband built, and it's very small.
Again, I talked about dripping water.
You can see there's a little waterfall there.
We had that rock on the top gouged out to make a little bowl
for bird bathing, and then it drips and makes a little sound,
and we have a very
But then after that you can put all of your native plants all
around your pond and have a very beautiful native garden.
Waterlilies are classic pond
And not only that, they're plants, as you well know.
They'll feed on the seeds of the very nutritious for waterfowl.
year. If you have a waterlwet shrubby area, of the
you may be able to attract this warbler: the common yellow
throat. Or maybe even a heron.
Of course, there's a great
Now, this is the one thing that you should be very careful of in
any waterscape that you put in, and that's to avoid mosquitoes.
That's a little illustration
And when we first put in our of a mosquito larvae there.
lot of mosquito larvae, but then pond, for a week or two we saw a
of that, and we never have the frogs came in and took care
In a birdbath, our little dripper seems to keep the water
moving enough so that we don't
But if you don't have a dripper in your birdbath, you should
clean it twice a week to make sure that you're not breeding
the mosquitoes. In the
in Milwaukee where the frogs are case of a pond, if people
where I previously lived, and exa friend of mine then boughte
little minnows at a bait store, and that kept the mosquito
larvae down in her ponds
So, if you don't get frogs, be in the summertime.
those mosquito larvae down. suYou don't want diseaseseep
yourself, like West Nile, and of
the rest, and it's better for cobirds, too, who also mightl
succumb to West Nile. This
the reason I'm introducing this is because it's such a small
home and yet they documented how
attract more birds. This even the smallest landscape can
They had the typical landscape. Mostly non-native plants; a few
native trees that they had inherited.
But they worked with National Wildlife Federation and created
a native landscape in both
And the neat thing is, if any of you do this same thing and
document it, please let me
You can see that they started with, look at the bottom line.
there, with three native plants they put in, and eventually they
had up to 113 over
And look at the increase of birds and butterflies and even
mammals and insects, including
They had, I think, over 30 lots of butterflies.
at the end, where they had different species of butterflies
So anyway, you can see how all maybe about two originally.
increase the wildlife on that overy small property which wasin
only about a 50 by 100 feet lot. Oops, there we go.
Now, I mentioned to you about Doug Tallamy, Dr. Doug Tallamy
who wrote that book Bringing Nature Home.
He has also done a number of
landscapes with stnon-native landscapes.ve
In this case, the native
green here, and the conventional landscapes are indicated in
And you can see here were the non-native landscapes.
First, the top graph shows there how many more birds.
native landscape. The were bottom one shows birdin the
species richness, that's
And the number of species were the number of species.
included some of the rare birds gof concern in that state.it
So, again, that was very
plants for birds. Likewise, impohe did another studytive
and in this case, there were 12 properties and he paired them
according to size. All
there are the native properties, the little green circles
non-native planted properties. and the conventional are the
according to size. You'll Andsee a green dot and a redhese
diamond there. From about one-third acre and at
the end of the scale there were several that were almost 10
acres. And you can
the native landscapes in the see in every case
Those are our green butterflies, folks.illars.
Far more butterflies and, of
birds in the native landscape as course, caterpillars for the
and that's, again, because our it compared to the conventional,
support the insects. They nodidn't evolve together andt
they don't have the enzymes to
Now, in my book I talk about a feed on those non-native plants.
you could create in your yard. number of different gardens that
gardens have always One, ofbeen popular.ingbird
And here are two of the great plants that you can offer.
First plant of the year, the
plant of the year, wild columbine, and the last
The ornithologists have found that the birds seem to follow
the columbine coming north in the spring and the jewelweed
going south in the
So those are beautiful fall of the year.
About the first and the last native plants.
Of course, there are many, many other great native hummingbird
flowers, like the cardinal
catchfly. These are red flowand, of course, ityal
does attract hummingbirds, and
more nectar. However, often there's lot of othero have
yellow and pale little flowers
too, like the Solomon seals they that do attract hummingbirds
primrose. So there's liked in my yard and the evening
flowers, but I don't have time lots of other
The other thing for hummingbirds to show you all of those.
your yard, make sure that you tdon't prune all of the littlein
twigs off your shrubs,
because hummingbirds especially at the outside
They perch 85% of the time, and they not only are very
territorial and like to watch over their property and chase
other hummingbirds away, but
during that time, and when their they also digest their food
go feed again on your flowers or crop is about half full, they'll
and perch. You could your feeders and then come back
invasive honeysuckles or buckthorns.
We've done that. We've
near our hummingbird garden, stuck it in the ground
branches for the birds, and not only hummingbirds, but lots of
other birds like perches. And you might be lucky enough to
have a hummingbird
Here's mom feeding two little ones in that little tiny thimble
sized lichen covered nest.
hummingbird garden in our HerGreendale property in thettle
Milwaukee area. As I
just like everyone else. Our told you, we had a lawn
There's a few shrubs separating lait from our neighbors.d.
But we put in some of those little shrubs that you see, and
then, eventually, we put in some
the foreground, and here was native hummingbird flowers in
Prairie gardens should be the classic American garden because
what other continent had
This is the corner lot of a friend of mine who is the
president of the Wild Ones
Her home is that little brown spot that you see in the trees.
But they have corner lot, which is very sunny, and she and her
husband created this beautiful
And goldfinches are birds that prairie on the corner lot.
large prairies. They add love prairies small or very
to the prairies. This prairie is in the front of
a home in St. Paul, Minnesota.
And here you can see it's right in the midst of the city, and
they have a nice, neat edge,
border, and I understand they get compliments all the time as
people walk by and enjoy
This is where we live now. After these beautiful wildflowers.
I wanted to live a little further out and in a more rural
area. We live in the south
Kettle Moraine area down near East Troy.
We inherited this landscape.
this is a hill that you see in Lots of grass down below and
field grasses. We did thekeep a little lawn arounds of
the house, but for the most part we planted prairie plants.
And that's the hill in
So, much lovelier to look at the background there.
butterflies. Septic andfields are a great placend
for prairies too. This is on the other side of the
house. And studies
failing septic systems by the DNR, and they found that
herbaceous species are
Any kind of prairie or any fine over septic fields.
You don't want trees or shrubs. That could damage the septic
field, but prairie plants are fine and they probably even add
to the drainage with their roots.
Rain gardens, of course, are
and a rain garden could be as beconsidered as little wetland,
gardens for the birds because not only are they great
environmentally reducing
our rivers and waterways, but flthey also offer beautifulom
flowers for birds. Some hummingbird flowers here,
plus these flowers will attract insect-feeding birds.
They offer a little bit of
forth. And when sheltethey go to see, ofand so
course, they'll be good for seed-eating birds.
So, consider rain gardens as
Savanna gardens are littlanother possibility.irds.
Our original savannas were
see this beautiful oak here, scattered oak trees, like you
And most of our yards, when you think of it, are savanna in
structure. I think
here. But anyway, you can simply keepp
the trees on your landscape, as long as they're not an invasive,
and plant prairie below it and
And oaks are particularly valuable for birds when they're
at this point. The little caterpillars are very
abundant on oaks, and birds love to feed on them.
Later on, though, those oaks
tannins I should say, but the insects can't feed on those.
So, again, the plant itself can avoid being overeaten by
insects. Of course, the oaks have
wonderful caterpillars
Here's a little area where I for some birds.
That's when I still plantedhad brown hair.ur yard.
[LAUGHTER] We had planted that
oak a while back, and then here I am planting some herbaceous
species, and we created a little
So of you may see that's Joe Pye savanna corner in our backyard.
and the way we could retain it weed, which likes wetland areas,
drained into that area. So there is that our sump pump
retain that. So use it wathat water on yourr to
landscape to grow plants that you might not otherwise be able
to. Here's another
spot in our current home, in front of it.
We'll have one tree there, and
it. And, of course, this was all
grass, too, when
Here is what it looks like from the front door.
Shrubland gardens are great also.
We are losing a lot of our good native shrubs to all those
invasive shrubs. This is a corner lot in
St. Paul, Minnesota, and you
shrubs that are turning color cjust like our native trees.ve
And we have beautiful shrubland birds that we want to preserve,
like the indigo bunting, the
ornithologists say is one of eastern towhee here, which
eastern North America. And the fastest declining birds in
I've shown you a lot of wthose with the berries..
I just want to highlight
Dogwoods, we have a number of beautiful dogwoods, different
colored berries. Some like
shadier, some like it wetter, dryer, so you're sure to find
one species or more that
Likewise, with the viburnum wis another great group ofs.
Midwestern shrubs that
And, again, there's a variety there that some like it shady or
sunny and so forth, just
Woodland gardens are another like with the dogwoods.
creating a little woodland possibility, and you could start
if you have a woodland, get rid of those invasives and make sure
you have the native shrubs and
Here's a front yard herbathat is wooded.elow.
And you might attract woodland
phase screech owl, birds like this cute little red
So, no matter what size yard you my favorite color.
the wildlife, and have, it's so important.rease
Gardeners like you can
We should all think of our yards really make a difference.
that we can sustain all the abirds and other wildlife thato
are native to our yard before we
all of our urbanization lose morand so forth. them to
So I highly recommend you thinking of your yard as a
little nature preserve and
Of course, besides birds you'll get lots of butterflies, and you
might even get a rare bird as we did once.
This green-tailed towhee landed in our yard one year in our
little one-fourth acre little oasis there in Greendale.
And it was only the 10th record in Wisconsin, so we felt very
proud that we were able to host this little bird.
It was off course from the
So get out those invasive shrubs, as my husband is doing
here. You don't have
There's lots of other ways. Or one way to get rid of the
lawn or herbaceous vegetation that you don't want is to simply
put paper down and wood chips over it for a season, but there
are other ways to do that too.
landscapes for yourself after you've planted, and, also, itl
will be much better for birds,
our wildlife, and you'll really bbe doing something to make thef
Earth better. There's not a lot we, as
individuals, can do personally, but this is one thing you can
do. You can really
by creating a preserve make a difference
These are the wonderful photographers that provided
these photos that I've shown you today.
And I think I was starting to get a little out of time, so I
went kind of fast, but we're
answers now if we have going to take questions and
Just to clarify the color of time. Do we have time?
originally what color? >> tThat was the cedar waxwing.'s
Originally, it's got a
a kind of orange or reddish color tail when it's eating too
many honeysuckle berries. Any other questions?
Would many of these plants
Oh, definitely. I have help bees and bats also?
of bees in my yard, and one of my favorites for bees is
St. John's wort, the
I've never seen so many bees as I have on the particular plant,
but all of the flowers, the goldenrods, the blazing stars
that you see there. There's lots of, yes, and that's
so important too. We're losing our bees too.
It's very important. In fact, I believe several of
our bumblebees are extinct now
in Wthem. So very important.s of
Any other questions? >> Is
to turn your green lawn into a prairie like that?t
What is your question? >> Do
how-to if you want to turn your green yard into a prairie?
Oh, okay. My book is
you could consider that, but kind of a how-to so
out there too. Prairie there's a lot of good nurseries
great. Prairie Moon NursNursery, they're is
just on the other side of the border in Minnesota, they have a
wonderful catalog that will tell
And so those are, I you howould suggest that.ything.
Join Wild Ones. They're going to help you a
great deal. Incidentally, I do have copies
of my book. I actually, right now it's out
of print at this point, but I think they still have some new
ones at the Audubon, but I have seconds, like returns from
bookstores. So I do have some to sell back
there if you would like a second, and, of course, it will
be a discounted price.
Your book? >> Yeah, my book.
[INAUDIBLE] >> Birdscaping
I guess it's not up there now. Any other questions?
Some asked about fertilizer.
You asked about it. Could you.
Anyway, while she's going,
No, actually you don't want soto use fertilizers on native.
plants, especially
They will get very leggy and prairie plants.
fertilizers. So that's awful looking if you use
native plants. If you plant the right native
plant in the right place, it
you have. Sometimes should woodlands need ahe soil
little amendment, but they don't
mulch and stuff. need fertilizer, they need more
Can you make any suggestions Question over here now?
I have a whole section of my for a shady area?
So the woodland book fwould be the shady?, yes.
Right. And some of
can take a little bit of shade, so if you're going from sunny to
shady it would be basically the prairie, the savanna, and then
the woodland depending on how much shade you have.
Do you have a web page? >> No,
I'm sorry. I'm kind I of, I have to take mye.
husband every place because I don't even know how to turn on a
computer practically. [LAUGHTER]
Our house backs up to a prairie, and we were really
excited last spring because we
they were eating the grubs. >> Oh, wow, that is terrific.
It was fabulous, and then they turned into the Japanese
beetles. So, do you have any suggestions
in terms of what we could do to try to encourage the meadowlarks
and the other prairie birds to
with bugs later. >> The comJapanese beetles you feltlems
came from the prairie? >> No, the nursery people told
us that the grubs that the birds
into the beetles later. So were probably feeding on turned
should do. >> I'm not now quite sure, but thet we
Japanese beetles like lawns so
They go underground as grubs they wouldn't be in the prairie.
Right. So our lawn and produce in lawns mostly.
prairie, and that's where we backs up to the
think lawn. >> Right.in our
So do you have any suggestions?
Well, I believe that there's a
guard that you can use, and the other suggestion that I have
read is that don't water your lawn during that midsummer
drought. Lawn can go dormant.
Because that's when the grubs are growing and so forth, and
you can keep down the beetle that way.
Those were the two best natural controls that I know of that
I've read about. >> [INAUDIBLE]
There are new ones, I saw a few new ones at
the Audubon booth out here. And I have seconds that are
returns from some of the
discount. Now, I'm bookstores that I'll sell at a
morning I sold out of my last new books.
[INAUDIBLE] >> I'll be, yeah,
they said I should just stay out
other speaker can thercome in and set up. the
Any other questions or
Oh, no, I think she's anythjust stretching.some.
Okay, well, thank you all for coming and plant a native plant.
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