Naturally...

We've nearly run out of our first order of Blurb Books in the Chippewa Nature Center Store, but more are on the way! Get your autographed copy today for only $24.95 (members receive a 10% discount). Live far away? You can also pick it up in our Blurb Bookstore. For every copy sold online, Blurb donates and extra dollar to CNC! For an article about our book, including an interview with the author, check out Janet's Journals.

N A T U R A L L Y by Kyle W. Bagnall | Make Your Own Book

The Great Backyard Bird Count

If you love birds, you're invited to join thousands of other birders in the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), held this year from February 18-21. The Great Backyard Bird Count is a joint project of the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology with Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada. This four-day event is open to bird watchers of all ages and provides information about more than 600 bird species. “There’s simply no better way to collect information about all these birds so quickly across such a large range,” said Janis Dickinson, Citizen Science director at the Cornell Lab.From reports of rare species to large-scale tracking of bird movements, the GBBC provides insight into the lives of bird populations.

In 2010, the GBBC had a record-breaking year for participation as more than 97,200 bird checklists were submitted by an estimated 63,000 volunteer bird watchers from across the United States and Canada. To participate, you just have to spend at least 15 minutes counting birds on one day of the count. When you're done counting, you simply enter your data on the GBBC webpage.

For full details, visit http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html. 

start your landscape inventory now

A good starting point in landscaping is to inventory what is already there, and why not start in the winter months? Pay attention now to where the wildlife hangs out in your yard, and what plants are providing winter shelter or winter food. And notice, too, which plants are good for you – are there plants that have an attractive shape in the winter, or colorful fruits?

Gray Dogwood has lovely white berries
that fall migrant birds love!

Do this same inventory each season, from top to bottom. Are there trees with small flowers you hadn’t noticed before, such as willows, which provide an important nectar source for early-arriving orioles? Is there an open spot where you could plant an attractive (unmown) native grass, such as Little Bluestem, that would provide shelter and food for small ground birds?

Black Gum provides blue berries that
this Gray Catbird loves, and a wonderful
shape and fall colors for you.

Ideally, your yard is providing food year-round, with seeds, berries, insects, leaves, etc., for a wide variety of wildlife. For example, raspberries and serviceberry are excellent summer fruits, strawberry puts a fruit down-low for turtles and ground-feeding birds, dogwood berries are favorites of fall migrants, and winterberry (Michigan holly) is an excellent winter fruit.

Don’t fight what you have, but find plants that will enhance your property. Whether you have wet soil or dry, sun or shade, there are hundreds of native plants that can enhance your yard for both you and wildlife.

How Much Land Does It Take to Feed a Bee Colony? More Than You Think

It's a classic image of summer - busy bees buzzing in the bushes (sorry, I couldn't resist!) But what's really going on when a hive of honeybees take to the air in search of food? How much do bees eat? What flowers do they prefer? And how might their food choices relate to Colony Collapse Disorder of which we've heard so much in recent years?

Kim Flottum, of thedailygreen looks at these questions and more in her blog essay: How Much Land Does It Take to Feed a Bee Colony? More Than You Think. Check it out and next time you see those bees on your bushes or reach for that bottle of honey in the supermarket you'll have a new appreciation for all their hard work!

Plant Pot Recycling

Join East Jordan Plastics in their efforts to recycle leftover plant pots, flats, tags, etc. (any horticultural related items made from plastic) this season. You can drop off your rinsed pots other items at Meijer’s or Home Depot throughout the Midwest during the spring and summer months or you can arrange a pick-up for larger quantities. Last year, they collected more than 300,000 pounds of materials! Check out EJP website on how you can help make a difference.

Thanks to Abbey at Midland's Dow Gardens for passing this news along! If you are feeling left out and don't have plant pots to recycle, join Chippewa Nature Center for our annual Native Plant Sale on May 27 (CNC members only), May 28 and May 29. Just click here for more details or give us a call at 989-631-0830.

Great Backyard Bird Count Feb. 12-15

The 13th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming! Your chance to count for fun and count for the future comes from Friday, February 12, through Monday, February 15. Whether you participate once or several times, by submitting your list of the birds you see at http://www.birdcount.org/ you will help scientists learn more about how birds are faring in your neighborhood.

The count has been a joint project of the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for many ears. This year, they are delighted to welcome Bird Studies Canada (BSC) as the first international partner. “Bird Studies Canada is delighted to be the Canadian partner for this extremely valuable program,” said George Finney, President of BSC. “Participating in the GBBC is an excellent way for Canadians to reconnect with their love of nature and birds.”

Help Make this the Biggest GBBC Ever!

The more people who participate in the GBBC, the better the information scientists will have about how bird populations may be changing over time due to habitat loss, climate change, disease, or other factors. To take part, just check out details at the Great Backyard Bird Count website and this Friday, start counting!

Brush Piles for Wildlife

Brush piles have a reputation in some circles as "waste piles," the sign of the Lazy Man who refuses to keep things tidy. But in wildlife circles, they have a much different status. A well-built brush pile is a nesting spot for Northern Cardinals, Song Sparrows and Gray Catbirds. It's shelter for migrating White-throated Sparrows and overwintering Northen Juncos, as well as resident rabbits, grouse and chipmunks. And it is an emergency bomb shelter when a hawk enters the vicinity. So this holiday season, consider giving wildlife a homemade gift - a brush pile!

So how does one built the neighborhood's BEST brush pile? A good shelter has a dry basement, so start with a dry spot, or build up the site a bit before beginning. If there is standing water under the pile, it is of less value to the animals you are building for.

The bottom "floor" should be logs or sizeable branches of leg thickness or greater. This is the foundation, the ultimate factor determining width and length, so plan accordingly. Place the foundation logs parallel to each other, with a foot or two in between (the better for chipmunks, weasels and rabbits to scurry through), then place another layer of similar size on top of these, running in the opposite direction. Layer #3 should be smaller branches, placed thickly enough to catch grass clippings from above but loose enough to provide ventilation.

From this point up, the brush pile is whatever you make it, using whatever "stuff" is available -- straw from the dog pen, branches trimmed from shrubs, grass clippings, fallen branches. All that really matters is that there are alternating layers of loose material (such as branches of various sizes) and more solid material (straw, grass clippings). Solid layers capture fallen seeds and provide insulation, while the open layers allow for ventilation, as well as easeir movement through the pile for those who live there.

If the appearance of the brush pile is a concern, or you want to provide a two-for-one deal for animals (shelter AND food), decorate the brush pile with Wild Grape, Virginia Creeper or other vines to provide a splash of fall color, seeds and berries. As will all really good gifts, a brush pile will bring pleasure to both those that use it, and the one who sees how much it is appreciated.

 - Janea Little, Senior Naturalist

Christmas Bird Count - Volunteers Needed!

The Audubon Society's Frank Chapman proposed the first "Christmas Bird Census" on December 25, 1900. For the past 109 years, Christmas Counts have become a major factor in tracking the health of bird populations across North America. Why not become a "Citizen Scientist" and get involved this year?

With Christmas Bird Counts in Midland and Bay City fast approaching, we are looking for volunteer counters, as well as a new compiler for the Midland count. We would also like to thank Dr. Gene Beckham for his years of compiling the Midland event and assisting with other counts.

To sign up as a volunteer for the Midland or Bay City count (or both), please contact the following:

Bay City Count: Dec. 19
Jeanne Henderson at 989.684.3641

Midland Count: Dec. 20
Dr. Gene Beckham at 989.631.4927

This is 110th year of the Christmas count and we are looking keep this tradition alive and well in the Great Lakes Bay Region. You don't have to be an expert birder or have prior experience with bird surveys. All helpers are welcome!

Squirrels at the Feeder

I sometimes wonder if the Gray and Fox Squirrels feasting on millions of pounds of sunflower seeds at America’s backyard bird feeders ever think about the “good ole days.” Do they remember burying acorns and other nuts throughout the forest, and scrounging all winter, using their fine noses to rediscover the vast majority of

their cache? (Or perhaps someone else’s cache – 85% of buried nuts are found and eaten, but not necessarily by the original owner.) Do they remember days on end of not having food because a thick layer of ice made digging through the snow impossible? Do Gray Squirrels in particular have family legends of the great emigrations, when thousands of them periodically deserted food-scarce forests, drowning by the hundreds as they tried to swim swollen rivers?

Squirrels have always eaten a varied diet, including not only the nuts they are famous for burying, but the buds, blooms, sap, and inner bark of trees, as well as fungi, insects, galls, bird eggs, and fruit. They know their resources well. Gray and Fox Squirrels, for instance, learn in just one season to snip out the seed embryo from a white oak acorn before burying it, else the acorn will germinate and grow a large taproot, which squirrels aren’t keen on eating. Red oak acorns, on the other hand, are buried “as is,” because they go dormant after falling from the tree, and will store nicely for the whole winter.

Fungi are stored for winter eats as well, though more commonly by Red Squirrels than by the two larger squirrel species. Fungi are not just buried; they are first snipped off at the base or in bite-sized chunks, and left to dry on a stump or in the fork of a tree.

The cynic in me sometimes believes squirrels no longer have need for these basic survival skills, because they simply eat at bird feeders on demand. In reality, though, I know this isn’t true. I get too many calls from people upset about squirrels stripping the bark from maple trees in the spring. (We aren’t the only ones who know about the sweetness of maple sap.) On nearly any walk in the fall woods, I find at least one mushroom drying on a stump. And just to prove how savvy they are (or how little I know), a young black squirrel ran by my window as I wrote this article -- carrying a walnut he was obviously intent on burying!

-Janea Little, Senior Naturalist

Windows: Indiscriminate Killers

You’re sitting at the dining room table, reading the paper and glancing occasionally at your bird feeders, when SMACK!, something slams into the window. It’s happened a few times in the past, so you know what you’ll find, you just don’t yet know whether the victim will be a cardinal, mourning dove, Cooper’s hawk, or perhaps a migrating ovenbird.

These fatal collisions don’t happen often at any one house, so most of us don’t address the problem. Even at the nature center, our efforts to reduce the number of birds killed when flying into Visitor Center windows have gone no further than putting up a few hawk silhouettes to break up the reflection of the glass. The number of birds killed has been reduced, but at least a dozen still die each year, especially during migration.

So a dozen die here, and a few die at your house – it doesn’t sound like a serious problem, does it? The numbers add up, though, house by house, skyscraper by skyscraper, until each year, over one BILLION birds die in window collisions. And that’s a conservative estimate, according to Dr. Daniel Klem, who has studied this conservation issue for nearly three decades. Klem is a research ornithologist from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He studies not just the scope of the problem, but viable solutions as well.

The basic problem for birds is that they see trees and sky reflected in windows. They don’t recognize the window as part of a building, and continue ahead at full steam. Even at times when there is no reflection, windows placed across from each other create the illusion that birds can fly through to what they see on the other side.

Window kills occur on all sizes of windows, all sizes of buildings, and in all four seasons. So what can you do to lessen the impact (literally!) of your windows? Klem has studied many possible solutions, including placing bird feeders closer to windows, and architectural and glass style options such as angling windows outwards, using glass with imbedded dots (resulting in a frosted appearance), and designing buildings with deeply recessed windows.

He found silhouettes and other window decals have little effect, as they are too small to impact more than a very small area of the window. Moving feeders to within a few feet of windows is helpful. The greatest potential for solving the problem, however, appears to lie in architectural design and window manufacturing arenas. To learn more about how to protect birds from striking windows at your house, check out thise website www.birdsandbuildings.org.

Once it's completed, our renovated Visitor Center will include porch overhangs and other methods of reducing window kills at CNC. Stay tuned for future updates on this important issue!

- Janea Little, CNC Senior Naturalist

Wildlife Encounters: Baby Animals

With nesting and birthing season underway, wildlife rehabilitators are inundated with calls about orphaned or injured baby animals. Sometimes the animal is truly in trouble and can be rescued, while others are actually following a normal protocol and should be left alone. And of course, over all of them looms the specter of “let nature take its course.”

The “circle of life” and “letting nature take its course” are very practical outlooks. After all, everything has a time to live and a time to die, right? But I know through many personal experiences how hard it is to let that one play out! Sure, I love carrion beetles (who doesn’t), and I want a baby hawk to have plenty to eat, but still, when there’s a sick little bunny on the ground in front of me, or a crying baby raccoon that is obviously lost, it’s hard to walk away and do nothing. I usually succeed in making myself follow that course of action, knowing if the animal dies it will truly benefit another one. I remind myself that a recently-fledged hawk or young fox is not capable of catching a healthy adult chipmunk, but learns survival skills by finding a sick or wounded one it can capture. I remind myself that the American Burying Beetle is an endangered species, and wouldn’t it be cool if one happened upon this animal after it dies? But it is always a struggle to not step in and try to save the day.

If you feel you MUST rescue an animal in need, here are some serious dos and don’ts to follow:

1) Stay safe! The animal doesn’t know you are trying to help. You match exactly the picture of “nasty predator” from his self-help book, so guard against being bitten or scratched by using heavy gloves and handling the animal as little as possible.

2) Safety includes protecting yourself against parasites and diseases. Most wild animals have external parasites – ticks, lice, fleas or all of the above – so wear gloves and don’t let your kids cuddle the cute baby! They also might have a disease that you don’t want to expose you or your pets to, including rabies, distemper, and a variety of other viruses. Limit contact and thoroughly wash or dispose of any blankets or containers used to transport the animal.

3) Consider whether the animal is really in need of assistance. If you walk by some young creature and it looks disheveled, begs for food, and claims its parents haven’t fed it in days, ask yourself, “how is this different from my teenager, who lies on the couch and begs for pizza money?” Truly, many “orphaned” babies are simply teenagers who don’t yet know how to fly (much like a 15-year-old behind the wheel) or hunt, and whose parents are trying a little tough love to make it “get off the couch.”

If you come along and feed it, you’ve stopped the natural process of the youngster learning to find its own food. Likewise, some REALLY young animals should also be left alone. A mother rabbit really doesn’t return to the nest until after dark, so you will not see her unless you use night-vision goggles. If the dog dug up the babies, put them back in the nest and sure enough, the mother rabbit will reclaim them. (Rabbits never read those books that say they abandon their young if you or your dog touches them.) Female deer really do leave their newborn fawns for hours on end, because the tiny baby can’t keep up and is better off staying still and hidden. These are not babies that should be rescued, or even approached!

4) If you are SURE the animal should be rescued, check the DNR’s website for a list of licensed wildlife rehabilitators (www.michigan.gov/dnr, click on “wildlife & habitat”). Don’t be surprised at the very short list – rehabbing wildlife is extremely time-consuming, expensive and generally thankless.

I hope I haven’t caused you to dread your next outdoor experience! This is a beautiful season to get outside and enjoy nature’s show, including baby animals. Hopefully they will all cooperate and have only positive experiences in front of you!

- Janea Little, CNC Senior Naturalist

Organic Lawns Made Easy

Green lawns seem to be a rite of spring and part of summertime fun. But creating that suburban dream can come at a big cost to the environment and the wild animals that call our yards home. Going organic and still having a green lawn isn't just a pipe dream, it can become your reality! So forget the synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides this year and begin the transition to organic. The following tips are quoted from "Six Tips for a Lawn You'll Love" by Fern Bradley. Fern is one of the editors of the Reader's Digest All-New Guide to Gardening and has a number of posts on the Reader's Digest Living Healthy Blog. 1. Leave it long to prosper. One of the simplest changes is to start letting your grass grow longer—3 inches long—before you mow it. And when you do mow, never remove more than one-third of the height at one time. This stresses the grass less, and the longer lawn naturally shades out weeds. 2. Stop bagging the clippings. Grass clippings are natural fertilizer. Leave them in place each time your mow, and in the course of a year, they’ll add roughly 2 pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet to your lawn. 3. Spread compost. Stop applying chemical fertilizer and substitute compost instead. Apply screened compost at least once a year, spreading a layer that’s no more than 1/4-inch thick. You can do the job by hand with a rake or use a drop spreader. 4. Water deeply. If you must irrigate your lawn, be prepared to soak it thoroughly. This will encourage roots to grow deeper into the soil, and that strengthens your lawn over time. 5. Overseed for a lusher lawn. If your lawn seems sparse, perhaps it just needs more grass plants! You can apply more grass seed right to your existing lawn. It may help to aerate or dethatch your lawn before you spread the seed. Fall is the right time to overseed cool-season grasses; spring for warm-season grasses. 6. Diagnose problems before you treat. If your lawn is looking sickly with patches of dying or dead grass or other unusual symptoms, make sure you diagnose the problem properly before you try to treat it. Gardening reference books like the All-New Illustrated Guide to Gardening include charts of lawn pest and disease symptoms and treatments, or try taking a digital photo of the problem and e-mail it to your local cooperative extension service for a diagnosis.

Nest Boxes Now

Many species of birds choose holes in trees as their favorite spots to build nests. As old, dying trees are cut down in our neighborhoods, fewer of these cozy nesting cavities are available for our avian friends. These days, many bird species are under major stress and need our help. Habitat loss, climate change, window kills, and other hazards have led to dramatic changes in bird populations in the past 40 years. The State of the Birds Report, released by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in March, warns that fully 1/3 of the 800+ bird species in the U.S. are in trouble. It states "Among these species, 67 are federally listed as endangered or threatened. An additional 184 are species of conservation concern because of their small distribution, high threats, or declining populations. Nest boxes are a great way to attract birds to your backyard habitat. Depending on where you live, birds such as Chickadees, House Wrens, Tree Swallows, Nuthatches, Bluebirds, House Finches and even Screech Owls might take up residence. Different species prefer certain size holes and boxes, so be sure to check the specs before you build. Some birds, such as a Robins, Phoebes and Barn Swallows prefer a nest shelf instead of a box. Click Here for plans. And you can build your own predator-resistant bluebird box with these plans from Chippewa Nature Center. Questions? Just contact us here.