Canopy Roads of South Georgia

Native plants in your yard for native wildlife

Nature is not something out there, apart from people. It never was, and nowadays people have built and farmed and clearcut so much that wildlife species from insects to birds are in trouble. In south Georgia people may think that our trees make a lot of wildlife habitat. Actually, most of those trees are planted pine plantations with very limited undergrowth, and in town many yards are deserts of grass plus exotic species that don't support native birds. Douglas Tallamy offers one solution: turn yards into wildlife habitat by growing native species. Since we are as always remodeling nature, we might as well do it so as to feed the rest of nature and ourselves, and by the way get flood prevention and possibly cleaner water as well, oh, and fewer pesticides to poison ourselves.

Douglas Tallamy makes a clear and compelling case in Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants

...it is not yet too late to save most of the plants and animals that sustain the ecosystems on which we ourselves depend. Second, restoring native plants to most human-dominated landscapes is relatively easy to do.

Some of you may wonder why native species are so important? Don't we have more deer than we can shoot? Maybe so, but we have far fewer birds of almost every species than we did decades and only a few years ago.

Some may wonder: aren't exotic species just as good as native ones, if deer and birds can eat them? Actually, no, because many exotic species are poisonous to native wildlife, and because invasive exotics crowd out natives and reduce species diversity. From kudzu to Japanese climbing fern, exotic invasives are bad for wildlife and may also promote erosion and flooding by strangling native vegetation.

All plants are not created equal, particularly in their ability to support wildlife. Most of our native plant-eaters are not able to eat alien plants, and we are replacing native plants with alien species at an alarming rate, especially in the suburban gardens on which our wildlife increasingly depends. My central message is that unless we restore native plants to our suburban ecosystems, the future of biodiversity in the United States is dim.

Tallamy had an epiphany when he and his wife moved to 10 acres in Pennsylvania in 2000:

Quail are not very smart

In today's episode of The Tractor Naturalist, a doughty quail dares the mighty machine to catch it! Well, either that, or quail are just not very smart. I thought this Colinus virginianus might run ahead all the way to the house.

See the bobwhite run! Would it have run faster if Brown Dog and Yellow Dog had been chasing it? Caution: this video is loud.

Colinus virginianus
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 August 2012.

-jsq

 

Great Blue Herons, Okra Paradise Farms, 22 July 2012

Do you hear anything upstairs?

Do you hear anything upstairs?
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 July 2012.

Maybe over there?

Woodpecker trees, Okra Paradise Farms, 29 June 2012

We had to take down one dead tree, but there are others for the woodpeckers. Well, people keeping telling me this oak is dead, but I say it's only been a few years, and it's going to sprout out again any time now:

Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 June 2012.

Dead pine:

Geese and Cattle Egrets in a cow pasture

A rather odd little grouping of things. A large flock of geese in a cow pasture.

Here's the video:

Geese and Cattle Egrets in a cow pasture

Video by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2 June 2012, for Okra Paradise Farms.

-gretchen

Summer Tanager, Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 April 2012

Female summer tanager:

Picture of a female summer tanager (Piranga rubra) by Gretchen Quarterman
for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 April 2012.

-jsq

Great Blue Heron, 22 April 2012

Heron in slash pine tree:

Pictures of Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) by Gretchen Quarterman
for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 April 2012.

Here's a slideshow.

How many little birds are there?

It's kind of hard to tell with the low light, the fuzzy cell phone video, and especially with them crawling over each other. You can hear them, though!

Here's the video:

How many little birds are there?
Video by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 April 2012.

Probably house wrens. Nesting under the eaves of the farm workshop.

-jsq

Pileated vs. Ivory Billed Woodpeckers

There is some confusion of the Lord God Bird, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker that was thought extinct until the 1940s until 2004, with our local Pileated Woodpecker. They are similar colors and similar size:

Pileated WoodPecker (Dryocopus pileatus) Flying: Dark trailing wing edge Perched: Small white patch Length: 16-19 in. Wing span: 26-30 in.	Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) Flying: White trailing wing edge Perched: Large white patch Length: 18-20 in. Wing span: 30-33 in.
Above illustrations by N. John Schmitt © Cornell Lab of Ornithology

You can clearly see when this bird flew overhead it had a black trailing wing edge:

Pair of Pileateds in a Pine Tree

What are these, climbing turkeys? They're almost big enough.

Or maybe a pair of Southern Pileated Woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) on a longleaf pine (Pinus Palustris).

I got pretty close; they just laughed. Eventually I walked away to do something else, and they flew into another tree directly over my head, where you see them in this video:

Pileated Woodpeckers, Dryocopus pileatus, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman, 7 November 2011.

-jsq