Vanishing Birds

Photos: Top, populations of the rufous hummingbird have declined 58% since 1967, according to a new study just released by the Audubon Society. Left, populations of evening grosbeaks have declined 78%. Both photos courtesy the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, via the Wikipedia.

THE AUDUBON SOCIETY HAS JUST RELEASED an analysis of 40 years of reports on bird populations with the unhappy conclusion that many bird species are in decline: "Since 1967 the average population of the common birds in steepest decline has fallen by 68 percent; some individual species nose-dived as much as 80 percent. All 20 birds on the national Common Birds in Decline list lost at least half their populations in just four decades."

A surprising number of these species would be familiar to most gardeners. Among the popular "backyard birds" that made the list was one of my own favorites, the evening grosbeak. Populations of this large black and yellow bird, which has a distinctive bright yellow slash above its eye, are down an astonishing 78% since 1967. (The decline in this species is second only to the decline in populations of the northern bobwhite, down 82%.) If you live almost anywhere in the United States or southern Canada, you've probably hosted flocks of these birds at your feeders.

Another surprise is the decline in populations of the common grackle, a member of the Corvid (crow) family, that is often seen in urban areas and parks. Because it seems to get along well with humans, I wouldn't have expected this bird to be in decline--but it is, down 61%.

Populations of rufous hummingbirds, which are the hummingbirds most likely to be seen at feeders on the West Coast, are down 58%.

If you live in a rural area or area where there is still natural habitat left, you are likely to spot a lot more good friends on this list: The boreal chickadee (down 73%), eastern meadowlark (72%), field sparrow (68%), and ruffed grouse (54%) are just a few examples from the "top 20" list.

All of these declines can be attributed, one way or another, to loss of habitat. Farmland and meadow birds are suffering because of suburban sprawl, industrial development, and the replacement of old-fashioned farming methods with intensive agriculture. Other birds are in trouble because of climate change, deforestation, and loss of wetlands.

None of these species is on the verge of extinction, at least not yet. But such huge declines are very worrisome. What can we, as wildlife-friendly gardeners, do? Here are Audubon's recommendations, with my comments:

• Protect local habitat. This would include gardening and landscaping in a wildlife-friendly way, as well protecting natural areas where they still exist in your neighborhood. You can also support organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy, that protect critical habitat areas.


• Support sustainable forests. One good way to do this is to buy wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which is the toughest of the certification programs. The Audubon Society notes that this would be especially helpful to our friends the evening grosbeaks, as they are dependent on boreal forests as breeding grounds.


• Promote sound agricultural policy. Agriculture has a tremendous impact on wildlife, and our shopping and eating choices have a tremendous impact on agriculture. Once you've made your own property wildlife friendly, it seems to me that the natural "next step" is to support farmers who manage their land in a wildlife-friendly way. You can do this by shopping for organic, locally grown, seasonal foods and getting to know your local food producers. Let them know that you care about wildlife-friendly farming practices.


• Protect wetlands. If you have wet areas on your own land, large or small, value them, plant them with native plants, and protect them. They are essential not only for many birds but also for other animals, particularly amphibians.


• Fight global warming. There are lots of ways to do this, but as gardeners we can avoid using tools that are powered by gasoline or electricity, plant trees, landscape in such a way that we reduce heating and cooling costs in the home, improve soil quality, grow our own vegetables ... and probably quite a few other things as well.


• Combat invasive species. This recommendation is particularly relevant to gardeners, as sadly we have been responsible for the introduction of far too many species that have caused degradation of wildlife habitat. The easiest way to avoid planting invasive species and help wildlife at the same time is to garden with native plants.

Each of these recommendations would be helpful not just to birds but to all native wildlife, to say nothing of human health and quality of life! They deserve more discussion than I can give them in a single post. Where they're relevant to gardening and landscaping, I'll be coming back to them in future installments.

Good Drainage for Good Planting

MANY PLANTS DIE HORRIBLY if their feet are wet. If your site is mostly wet, as mine is, you can address this easily by planting the species--typically those that grow on or near wetlands--that will tolerate wet soil. You can get a lovely garden this way; in fact I find that I'm designing more and more of my garden in such a way as to accommodate wetland plants.

But if there are "dry feet" plants you can't live without, the only solutions are either raised beds or a rockery (which is really a type of raised bed). By elevating your planting surface above the soil's natural level, you ensure that water will drain away from plant roots. If you're a cold-climate gardener, an additional benefit is that the soil in a raised bed generally warms up faster than does the natural soil.

Many plants love this type of environment. Most vegetables and culinary herbs require it, as do many beautiful plants that are native to North America, such as purple coneflower. Many of the best butterfly plants are dry-footers; if you want a butterfly garden, I definitely suggest finding or making a sunny, well-drained spot for it.

A conventional way to make a raised bed is to build one out of lumber, but lumber costs money, might be treated with toxic chemicals, and may not have been harvested sustainably.

Fortunately, there are easier ways to make raised beds. For instance, for my butterfly garden here in the Northeast, I was able to take advantage of regrading work that had to be done anyway. When I got here, the basement flooded regularly. A local backhoe expert fixed that for me by changing the drainage pattern in my front yard, and in the process he piled dirt in front of my house. The photo to the left shows the work being done in August 2003. I mixed manure into the soil and planted in 2004, and the photo above shows my butterfly/hummingbird garden in bloom in June 2006. Plants such as salvias, penstemons, and dianthus are thriving in the sun and good drainage. (Reflected sun from the white house helps to make this spot even warmer than it might otherwise be, while the house itself helps to shelter the site from wind. This is a perfect spot for a butterfly garden.) An added advantage of this bed is that, because it's sloped, the plants are more visible than they otherwise might be.

But I don't want to give the impression that you need a backhoe to make a raised bed! The point of this example is that you can take advantage of almost anything that happens on your property, even mini-disasters like flooding in the basement, to make good planting sites. Lemons into lemonade and all that.

The photo below shows a raised bed I made for my garden in the Pacific Northwest. This property had a long gravel driveway that I didn't particularly care for. I also had a lot of yard waste that could have been turned over to the county for composting--but why give away all those good nutrients? So I piled the yard waste on the driveway, let it sit until it had compacted a bit, added some good-quality dirt, and planted the mound with dry-feet plants such as artemesias and sedums. The logs that define the edges of this mound were an afterthought, inspired by a raised bed my friend Brett Johnson made out of some unwanted firewood. An arborist I knew offered me the pieces of an alder he'd cut down, and I grabbed 'em.

Some sort of edging definitely makes a raised bed look tidier. I use whatever I have handy--logs, rocks, even bits of broken concrete. But edging isn't absolutely necessary. For utilitarian purposes, such as a vegetable garden, a simple mound of soil will work remarkably well. The photo below shows one of my vegetable beds in the process of being made by mounding up soil I purchased by the truckload from a local composting facility. Thanks to these beds, I am generally able to start planting and harvesting earlier than my neighbors who have not adopted the raised-bed strategy. By using soil that had been mixed by professionals specifically for vegetable gardening, I was also able to get a good harvest my first year, without having to spend several years building soil.

A Walk on the Shady Side

LET'S TAKE A STROLL down a garden path. These photos show two views of a Pacific Northwest woodland garden designed to attract songbirds and other wildlife. When I took the bottom photo, I was standing right in front of the living room windows of my house. The top photo shows a view of the same garden looking toward the house.

I designed this particular spot as what I like to call a songbird sanctuary--a serene, shady spot that will attract birds. This is a good garden style for a location just outside the windows of a house: It creates a pretty view, attracts birds to location where you can easily enjoy watching them, and creates privacy. It works well even on the north side of a house (where it's just too shady for many plants) because woodland plants are naturally shade-tolerant.

Note that this garden offers plants at every level: groundcovers, taller perennials, shrubs, trees. It also includes both deciduous plants and evergreens. This gives birds the shelter they need in order to hide from predators, shelter from bad weather, and find suitable spots for nests. Different birds have different needs, so if you want to attract a variety of species, a varied environment such as this one is important.

Although you can't see this, it's also important to note that no pesticides were ever used in this garden. Almost all species of birds are dependent on insects to feed their young. Many species, such as wrens, eat only insects: They will not visit your garden unless they can find insects there.

Let's take a closer look at the bottom photo: The focal point of the photo is a small "tree" that really isn't a tree at all. It's a dwarf willow, which I pruned to look as much as possible like a small native tree called a vine maple (Acer circinatum). Why not just plant a vine maple? Because it would take too long to grow. I did plant vine maples in other spots in the garden. In fact, though you can't see it, there's one in the background of this photo. There are also a few mature trees in the garden; fortunately for me, they came with the house.

But sometimes a gardener just needs some instant gratification, and willows -- which grow fast -- are good little instant gratifiers. (They also attract butterflies and other pollinators, btw.) Yet there was a price to be paid for my lack of patience: A willow wants to have a lot of stems; I had to keep pruning it in order to keep it down to just two. This required a fair amount of maintenance.

At the foot of the willow is a small pond. Birds like and need water, so it's important to include at least a small water feature if you're creating a spot for them. You can see the spiky foliage of a slough sedge (Carex obnupta), a large wetland native, right at the bottom of the willow: That sedge is growing directly in the water.

In front of the pond is a planting of native bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa) and redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregona). These tough little groundcovers love moisture and shade and cover bare ground rapidly, which really helps to keep weeds out. The larger plant on the left, with pink flowers, is a common garden bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis). Though it's not native, it's an attractive, hardy, shade-tolerant plant that hummingbirds visit in early spring.

In the top photo, you can see that the pond is located right in front of one of the downspouts from my house. This isn't an accident. If you have a wet spot in your garden, use it! Bad drainage? As long as you can direct the water away from your house, this is one of those take-lemons-and-make-lemonade situations. Birds and other wildlife love these little spots where moisture collects, and so do many plants.

Going back to the bottom photo: Behind the willow, on the other side of a path, is a native serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia). This is another fast-grower that helps to create the illusion of a woodland garden complete with trees, even though technically it's more of a large shrub. An advantage for a bird garden is that, as the name implies, serviceberry produces edible berries, which both humans and many birds enjoy. If you're planting a spot for birds, you'll certainly want to include some native shrubs that produce berries for birds; in addition, a bird feeder is also useful if you want to attract seed-eating birds such as chickadees.

The serviceberry is covered in beautiful white flowers in the spring. And as you can see, the bleeding hearts also bloom reliably, even in shade. However, it's hard to get a lot of bloom in a woodland garden. There just isn't enough sun. To really appreciate a woodland garden, you need to be able to enjoy foliage colors, textures, and shapes, and the shifting patterns made by whatever sunlight penetrates your canopy of leaves.

The top photo shows the "sunny" side of this garden. Even though this area gets more sun than the spot right next to the house, those irises you can see in the bottom left-hand corner never did bloom. I enjoy the way their sword-like foliage contrasts with the soft groundcovers that surround them and with the froth of forget-me-nots that used to volunteer in the garden every year. But that's the sort of subtlety you have to be able to appreciate if you want to get full enjoyment from your woodland garden. If your idea of a beautiful garden features dahlias the size of dinner plates, this is not the garden for you!

Over on the left of that top photo, you can see a few pinkish-purple rhododendron flowers; the rhodie was dying a slow, lingering death over on the other side of the house when we bought the place. I moved it here, then planted a native rhodondendron (R. macrophyllum) right next to it. If I had kept the house, I probably would have gotten rid of the non-native rhododendron once the native one was big enough. However, when I sold the house the native was several years old and still only about 6 inches tall. So the non-native rhodie will be serving as a "placeholder" for a long time to come.

This illustrates another important point about woodland gardens: They take take time. You can push a shade garden along by using tricks such as I've mentioned here (prune a shrub to look like a tree, take advantage of fast-growing or already established plants while you wait for the plants you really want). But when all is said and done, a woodland garden takes time because woodland plants take time: Trees, even large shrubs, just don't happen over night. The garden you're looking at in these photos was probably about 8 years old when these pictures were taken, and it's still far from mature. One day, if the vine maple, the Pacific rhododendron, and other native plants are left to grow, this garden will be far more beautiful than it is now.

The Ingredients of a Wildlife-Friendly Garden

HERE ARE SOME of the basic ingredients of a wildlife-friendly garden:

Food: You can provide food for birds (and probably squirrels and other animals too) simply by hanging out a bird feeder. But most wild gardeners also try to grow plants that produce nuts, berries, nectar, pollen, and sap that birds and other animals like to eat.

Clean water: All animals need water year-round. (Birds require water not just for drinking but also for bathing, to keep their feathers groomed.) A birdbath, particularly one that is kept thawed in winter, is welcomed by birds and often by other animals as well. Some people build ponds for wildlife; though a large, deep pond is a big project, a shallow pond suitable for birds can be built (using a liner) in just a few hours. Providing clean water also means keeping existing water sources clean – free of herbicides, pesticides, and other contaminants – and not allowing the banks of streams and ponds to be eroded.

Shelter: Animals also need somewhere to raise their young, hide from predators, and shelter themselves from cold. Many people provide birds with nest boxes (also known as bird houses) for nesting or “roost boxes” for winter protection. However, planting the right trees and shrubs can be an even more effective way of providing shelter for animals. Evergreen plants -- pines, junipers, cedars, yews – provide good winter shelter.

If you have a place for them, rock piles and brush piles also make wonderful shelter for animals. (Instead of hauling away brush the next time you prune, try piling it in an inconspicuous corner of your yard.) A dead tree – or “snag” – is considered highly desirable real estate by woodpeckers and many other creatures. If a tree dies on your property, are you sure you want to spend money to have it removed? As long as it doesn’t present a safety hazard, consider leaving it -- the animals will thank you.

Minimizing harmful practices: In gardening as in the rest of life, often what you don’t do is as important as what you do. For instance, wildlife-friendly gardeners try not to use pesticides, which kill beneficial insects along with the pests we are trying to target. (Most of us find that the birds and beneficial insects we attract to our pesticide-free yards eventually take care of most garden pests for us.)

On Becoming a Wild Gardener

IF YOU ENJOY watching birds, squirrels, and other wildlife in your garden … if you are trying to garden in an environmentally friendly way … if you believe that we humans should try to co-exist with the other species that inhabit this land with us … you're going to love being involved (if you aren’t already) in a growing national movement toward what I call wild gardening--gardening that is wildlife-friendly and inspired by nature.

Many people are attracted to wild gardening because they enjoy watching birds and other animals and want to attract them to their properties. This is an easy and very rewarding way to get into wild gardening, so I'm going to be focusing on it for a while. Here 's a little bit of an introduction:

Wildlife-friendly gardening is a way of taking care of our land – whether it’s a 100-acre spread or just one window box -- so that we help birds and other animals instead of driving them away. Wildlife-friendly gardeners do this by providing food, shelter, and clean water for animals, while minimizing practices that harm wildlife. In return, we enjoy the beauty, song, and entertaining antics of countless creatures; know that we are being environmentally responsible in our gardening practices; and bring a little “wildness” into our gardens and our lives!

Wildlife-friendly gardening need not be expensive or time-consuming. In fact, many people find that maintaining a wildlife-friendly garden is much less expensive and time consuming than gardening the old-fashioned way (especially if you formerly were trying to maintain a large lawn).

Wildlife-friendly gardening is not out-of-the-mainstream. Across the country, thousands of people are engaged in this practice.

Finally, your wildlife-friendly garden doesn’t have to conform to any one gardening style. It’s possible to design a wildlife-friendly garden in any number of styles -- from “natural” to “neat and tidy” and everything in between.

In the next weeks and months, we'll be exploring what all this means in practice. Please join me again soon!