Reprinted from August 19, 2021
Last of two parts
‘“The only thing that balances all of risks and costs of migration is the huge benefit of coming up to North America to reproduce,’ Doug Tallamy for the The Wild Life Society. ‘In temperate zone springtime, there’s a giant flush of green leaves that doesn’t appear in the tropics because it’s less seasonal there. Along with the flush of leaves comes caterpillars.’
‘“Insects don’t do as well on non-native plants’, Tallamy said, so as the human footprint expands, their numbers are declining. Recent research he was involved in suggests caterpillars make up the bulk of Carolina chickadees’ (Poecile carolinensis) diets, and it takes tens of thousands of caterpillars to feed just one clutch of nestlings.
‘“It’s no wonder the birds are declining,’ he said. “We are not creating landscapes that generate that number of caterpillars.”
“Increasing the use of native plants in landscaping can help reverse the trend, Tallamy said. ‘We need a happy compromise that shifts us from a majority of non-natives to a majority of natives in our landscapes,’ he said. Oaks can be particularly effective, hosting hundreds of species of native insects that birds need.’
“Tallamy launched an initiative called Homegrown National Park to encourage people to devote less of their yards to grass and more to native plants in an effort to create 20 million acres of conservation area.
‘“We’re really trying to convince the public that if you own a piece of the earth, you have a responsibility of being a steward,’ he said. ‘We can’t ignore private property when doing conservation.”’
Dana Kobilinsky is associate editor at The Wildlife Society. Contact her at dkobilinsky@wildlife.org with any questions or comments about her article. You can follow her on Twitter at @DanaKobi.