Inland Trees
Springtime in Florida is a great time to start landscaping your yard and reducing your lawn area. Local and migratory birds are adapted to the trees that grow in the habitats of your area. For example, pine flatwoods and oak hammocks.
There are many surface areas provided by a tree canopy and there are countless insects, seeds, nuts and even sap for birds to feed on.
Lawn is wysiwyg, “what you see is what you get.” One hundred square feet of lawn is…… Yet one hundred square feet with a tree on it becomes many square feet of surface over all of the branches and leaves. Imagine the bird’s eye view and the attraction of trees compared to exposed ground.
Our most prevalent tree, the slash pine, is nearly gone in most communities because we have overwatered them, driven over their roots with mowers, changed the ph of the soil with fertilizers and changed the drainage around them.
Hurricanes have simply finished the job. There is no reason not to replant with slash pines grown from a local seed source.
These have 12 inch long leaves and are bushy. Just keep lawn grass away from them. Pines from a North Florida seed source do poorly in South Florida where it is hot for too long and the soil is too dry.
These have shorter needles which turn brown, shriveled and eventually die in our local climate.
Dry soil, low fertility, and low ph are preferred by our local South Florida slash pine. They let in enough light, and increase the moisture holding capacity of the soil with organic matter from their needles, that grass will actually grow better near them than out in the full scorching sun.
To mimic nature, plant saw palmettos beneath the pines and create winding paths. You’ll have an inviting venue for people and wildlife.
The seeds of the pines and palmettos are eaten by wildlife and the dead branches house grubs that feed different kinds of woodpeckers, Plant other pineland shrubs like myrsine, dahoon holly and beauty berry to increase the variety.
Other trees to broaden your yard’s appeal include many leafy species. Live oak and water hickory provide nuts while hackberry and Florida elm provide seeds for birds as well as leaves for the caterpillars of several butterflies.
Strangler fig droops with fruit several times a year and is crowded with feeding birds. The orange ruddy daggerwing butterfly lays its eggs on the leaves,
The native red mulberry’s fruit attracts cedar waxwings as they migrate north in the spring. Fig and mulberry have spreading roots, so don’t plant them near a structure.
A local tree of moist soils, red maple can tolerate average soil once established. They bloom in February. The red flowers will be followed by red seeds that turn bright pink when ripe.
It is a fabulous site to see a large tree pink with seeds. These feed squirrels, wood ducks and others. In fact, wood ducks eat the nuts or fruit of oak, hickory, cypress, grapes, sweet gum and elm.
Plant these near a pond and put up nest boxes. Cypress should only be planted near water or in moist soil.
All trees must be watered two to three times a week for a month or two and as needed for the first year. Long periods without rain will require some further watering.
Keep an eye on your trees for up to two years. At one to two gallons of water per tree, you are not looking at much water- use compared to grass.
Trees are a great start to attracting birds and will shade out weeds in a short time. When looking for migrating songbirds in the spring and fall, just set down a seat under an oak tree in the early morning and the birds will soon be darting above you.
Plant trees in groups for a more natural look; straight lines look silly. You will be surprised at how fast they grow when grass is kept away from the roots.
Hummingbirds
Ti-ti, ti-ti, ti-ti, look up quickly and you will see the Ruby-throated Hummingbird on your firebush, salvia, necklacepod, crossvine, or any other tubular flowers nearby. These birds are here from October to May and are easy to attract.
Hummingbirds often perch on the thin tips of oaks as they wait to fly out and catch a passing insect. Their food includes mosquitoes, thrips, aphids, spiders and they even blow leaves over on the ground to expose insects.
This is called “leaf rolling”. They are excellent plant pollinators and thick-walled, scentless tubular flowers have evolved just for them.
Hummingbirds aren’t attracted by smell and the thick walls keep out pollinators that chew their way to the nectar.
Native species of plants that attract hummers include: Firebush, Necklace pod, Crossvine, Pavonia, Dicliptera, Penstemon, Coral honeysuckle, Cardinal flower, Trumpet vine, Coral bean and Red Salvia.
Exotic flowers include: Powder puff, Fuchsias, Aloe species, Scarlet begonia, Yellow elder, Nasturtium, and Shrimp-plant. There are others, but some are invasive, and some, like the Butterfly bush don’t last long in our hot climate.
A bittersweet thing has happened in South Florida: The invasive iguanas eat nearly all if the flowers and leaves off of the somewhat invasive Hong Kong orchid tree. Its flowers are attractive to hummingbirds and keep them fed when other plants are unavailable.
The three and a half inch long, one third of an ounce hummingbird can fly left, right, up, down, forward, backward and, get this, upside down for short spurts.
When active, the hummer’s heart races at 1,250 beats per minute and slows to 250 bpm when resting. Its wings purr at 60 beats a second.
During cold weather or when food is scarce, the little fellow enters a state of torpor and his heart slows to 50 bpm while his body temperature drops from a normal of 104 to just 55 degrees.
If you spot one on a twig, don’t pick him up; he will be fine when the temperature rises outside.
Tiny, bubble filled discs within the feathers give the hummer its color. The sun reflects light from these giving off various colors which are flashed at intruders or a mate.
Both the male and female ruby throat reflect an iridescent green while the male’s throat reflects a beautiful red. In the shade these colors turn to black.
Other species of hummingbirds can be rarely seen in South Florida. These come from the western states and the Bahamas.
Both the Anna’s and the Rufous hummingbird have visited me only once in the last ten years. The Black-chinned looks like a Ruby-throated yet the male, of course, has a black throat.
The call is a high-pitched squeak and he bobs his tail up and down often; the ruby-throated twitches his tail side to side occasionally.
The Rufous Hummingbird is orange and has a low chewp-chewp call. You may see the nearly identical Allen’s Hummingbird or the green Anna’s Hummingbird.
The male of this species is green with a red head and throat. It is very rare to find any other species of hummingbird in your yard besides the ruby-throated. You may be surprised, however, and hear the unusual sounds that these visitors make.
Attach a timer to your outdoor faucet and run tubing to a mist head clipped to a shrub. Hummers will bathe by flying through this mist and other birds will benefit too if a birdbath is placed beneath. Run this for a half hour to an hour each day.
With binoculars in hand, and ears perked, walk around the yard in the morning near your red salvia or firebush and you may hear the rapid video game-like sounds of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird and get a chance to see him.
Plant your yard for wildlife and you will definitely get hummers. Maybe not right away, but be patient and you will have them staying the winter in a year or two.
Fledglings
Young Birds Need Insects To Survive
Containing twice the protein of beef, insects are the difference between life and death for most birds. There are 35 times as many caterpillar species on native trees as exotic trees.
Oaks have 534 species of caterpillars that live on them. Black cherry supports 456 species. Even goldenrods and asters support 115 species.
Ninety six percent of our birds eat insects, of which very few can be found in the lawn environment. With 40 million acres of lawn in the United States, simply planting half of this to native plants would create wildlife habitat the size of four New Jerseys.
This would reverse the steep decline of our bird species and of course take a lot of carbon out of the air.
Just stand under a gumbo limbo tree in May to witness how attractive this native is to our wildlife. It is humming with pollinators visiting the flowers and flashing with birds eating some of those insects and the few remaining fruits.
As soon as the flowering is complete, the tree will leaf out; so don’t waste water trying to hurry the process.
Although the migrating birds are up north breeding, the young of local birds are just fledging in May.
Wood ducks, coopers hawks, various woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, screech owls, great crested fly catchers and others can be seen begging their parents for food or being watched over as they learn to forage for themselves.
Read the books Bringing Nature Home and others by Doug Tallamy, Timber Press to learn what you can do for wildlife.
With all of the TV nature programs dwelling on how we are losing wildlife, it is great to know that there is something that you personally can do to help.
It is fun to see birds and insects return to your yard and to know that you had something to do with it.
Next time you see “bugs” on your plants, you may find yourself feeling pride instead of dread and even spend a few minutes observing them. Maybe a bird will snatch one up and bring it to her babies.
Fig Whitefly
Thanks To The Fig Whitefly, We’re Having White Christmas Seasons.
Like tiny clouds of snowflakes, the fig whitefly falls from a shaken branch. The overused ficus is now in decline due to this introduced relative of the cicada.
If I offered you a plant and said “try this as a hedge, it grows over ten feet a year, requires lots of water and fertilizer, has roots that stray far from the plant and may crack your home’s foundation ,” would you take it?
If not trimmed, it will reach 80 to 100 feet in height and width. Now you can add the 100 to 175 dollar quarterly visit from your local pest control company to control Ficus Whitefly to that scenario.
Several species of Ficus are invasive and require tax money to remove from our parks and private money to keep them out of our yards.
Only the strangler fig and short leaf fig are native to Florida and are a very important berry producer for our birds. If you must have a fig tree, plant one of these at least 50 feet from any structure.
Diversity: a mix of plants, rather than a monoculture, stops pests from building up in numbers and spreading to other members of its preferred species.
When one kind of plant is killed by a pest, especially an introduced pest like the Fig Whitefly, you don’t suddenly loose all of your cover at once.
Shrubs to replace ficus include the Simpson, Spanish, red and redberry stoppers. These, along with myrtle of the river, are in the guava family and yield small dark or red berries that the birds fight over.
Jamaica caper, marlberry, Walter’s viburnum and firebush have lovely flowers and berries. For wind and salt tolerance try indigo berry, blolly, myrsine, Florida privet, yaupon holly and saw palmetto.
Pineland privet attracts many butterflies when in flower. Marlberry and wild coffee are great in the shade. Wild coffee has beautiful red berries at Christmas time and it’s fun to bring cuttings of these indoors for the holidays. Rinse off the insects hiding among the fruit if necessary.
The plants that I am recommending are slow to moderate growers and can be kept low with yearly selective pruning. This job requires thought and is much quieter than the mindless drone of hedge clippers every month.
It is also safer and doesn’t use gas. Never box a hedge; it won’t produce fruit and looks… well, square. A mixed hedge with a textured appearance is more aesthetic.
Enjoy the Christmas season by shaking a ficus branch to create a blizzard of tiny Fig Whiteflies. Look at this as a great opportunity to replant your yard with natives.
In the long run it will be cheaper, quieter, safer, more attractive and you will have more birds and butterflies to enjoy.
Fallout of Migratory Birds
Changes in the weather can cause large numbers of migrating birds to land in our yards. This is called a “Fallout.”
Cold, rainy weather systems in the fall create winds that blow from the south to the north and force birds that are flying south to land. Birds need a tail wind to migrate and will wait for several days for the winds to change direction.
This is when we see many species of birds that are not here during the rest of the year and in some cases, ones that have been blown off course. These may not be seen until blown off course again in several years.
The cool, windy days of October may bring many migrating birds into our area. Look for a nice variety of wood-warblers, vireos, painted buntings, fly catchers and the hawks that follow and prey on them.
The female buntings are green and the males are red, blue and green. Many of these beautiful birds will remain until they migrate north in May.
I keep a feeder full of white millet near some bushes where the buntings can hide from predators and are protected from the wind.
You can now find these feeders at Target for only around twenty dollars. The wire squares keep out larger birds, hawks and squirrels, yet let the buntings through to feed.
It is also necessary to provide water for your local and fallout birds so that they can wash and preen their feathers which then provide better insulation from the cold.
This should also be near brush for protection, yet raised out of the easy reach or cats. Leave about a three foot area of cleared space around the bird bath that cats can’t hide in.
I connect quarter inch plastic tubing to a timer at the faucet, run it underground to the bird bath and then up a nearby shrub. Let it drip into the bath for a half hour each day to replenish the water and rinse away the detritus.
When I look at large areas of lawn, I just can’t help think of the berry and nut producing native shrubs and trees that could be planted there instead.
These would provide habitat and food for many migrating and local birds. Less lawn would reduce the use of fossil fuels by mowers, blowers and weed wackers and of course water use.
I strongly feel that our yards should be places that catch carbon and add water to the aquifer rather than the opposite.
Many migrating birds are exhausted after hours of flight and often die simply because there is not enough food available for them to build up their fat reserves and continue on.
Yet, there are many bird species that are increasing in numbers due to our efforts to provide feeders, nest boxes and better habitat. It is exciting to think of what is possible.
Watch the weather in the spring and fall and be on the lookout for large numbers of migrating birds that may be forced to land when a change in wind direction or foul weather forces them down.
This is a great time to get out your camera and take pictures. They make nice Christmas cards too
Fall Bird Migration
Millions of migratory birds are passing through Florida in October and November on their way to South and Central America. Go outside and listen for the chips, chirps, warbles and other funny sounds that they make.
The leaders of the migration passed through in September. These included the blue-gray gnatcatcher which could be heard in the trees with its high pitched “speee” call.
Hummingbirds, painted buntings, wood warblers, wrens, vireos, thrushes, hawks and eagles can be seen now. Many painted buntings, hummingbirds and some of the wood warblers and hawks will stay until May when they head north for the summer.
You must have a planting of at least ten native firebush in your yard to supply enough nectar for the hummingbirds.
The exotic “Compact” firebush from Central America has yellow-orange flowers and offers little to our wildlife. You will find this imposter in most box stores.
The leaves come off of the stem in whorls of four and five and feel rubbery. The native has three to occasionally four leaves to a whorl and has fine hairs, .
Native red salvia will provide nectar to hummers and seed for painted buntings and other birds.
Male painted buntings: a combination of red, orange, blue and green, always make my day when using our feeder. Go to BestNest.com and check out their “caged bird feeders.”
These are feeders surrounded with wire that the buntings can get through yet squirrels and larger birds can’t. Make sure that there are plenty of shrubs nearby for the birds to hide in.
To make your own feeder, buy a 12 inch wide roll of one inch by two inch welded wire for building cages and cut a length four feet long. It doesn’t matter which way the rectangles are oriented.
Now fold the piece in half and then fold the open ends toward the center so that you have four equal 12 by 12 sections. Unfold them into a square and clip the two free ends together.
I like the clips that you can get at feed stores for making rabbit cages. Now make the 12 by 12 pieces for the bottom and top and clip together so that you have a perfect 12x12x12 cube.
Cut out a six by six square in the middle of one side and make a door from another piece of cage wire and clip together the bottom of the door to the bottom of the opening.
You will have the hook at the top of the door so that when you unlatch it, it opens down and out of your way.
Make sure that you place a piece of hardware cloth on the bottom to keep squirrels from reaching up to pull over the saucer.
Secure to the top of a four by four inch post in a protected, shrubby location and pour some white millet (available online) onto a small pan or saucer. You may want to pour in just enough millet for the day so that rats don’t start showing up.
You may need to pinch every other square of wire in order to make the holes big enough for the buntings to get in more easily.
Add a little millet each morning or bring the feeder in at night to discourage rats until the buntings find you. This may take the whole season from October to May the first year, yet each year more will show up.
Eventually you will have indigo buntings visiting too. Don’t forget to plant many species of fruit and nut bearing native trees and shrubs so that other migrants like catbirds, vireos and brown thrashers will have berries and insects to eat.
A bird bath is needed to help birds keep their feathers clean for better insulation during the coldest months.
With the first cold front in October comes a wave of migrating raptors which congregate at Curry Hammock State Park in Marathon. They stay briefly before flying across the ocean to South and Central America.
Call 305-289-2690 before going to make sure the park is open. Just skip work and drive down for an unbelievable day of watching hawks, eagles and peregrine falcons so numerous that you may end up yawning by the hundreth one you see.
If you can’t get away, a simple walk around the yard before 9 a.m. can often provide more bird sightings than driving somewhere. If your property is the only one in the neighborhood with native plants- which provide food and cover- and a water source, the birds will crowd there.
On clear nights you can even hear the occasional chirps of birds flying overhead. These are often bobolinks.
“Birds of Florida” by Lone Pine Publishing International is an easy to use book for Florida birds only. It takes time to learn the warblers especially, yet each year you will get better at it. You will be amazed by the variety of birds that you notice in your own back yard and neighborhood.
Remember that insects provide a large portion of the calories and protein that birds need. Many insects are specific in what they eat and have not evolved to get around the chemical defenses of non native plants.
Although pretty, these plants offer nothing to local wildlife and might as well be plastic. If you have native wildflowers, the seeds are often eaten by a variety of insects which in turn are eaten by small spiders. Many songbirds eat these insects and spiders, so don’t tidy up until after November.
Get up early and walk around with your binoculars; the oaks are a good place to start looking. Try making a phish, phish, phish sound and see who comes over to investigate, hopefully not your annoyed neighbor or her cat.
Edible Native Plants
Wildlife Food That’s Safe For Humans
As a teenager, I learned about edible wild plants through Euell Gibbons’ books and trips to the nearby woods. My family and I enjoyed many fruits, nuts, greens and even mushrooms that I prepared for them. This was where my interest in plants started and continues to this day.
As your children grow older and understand not to put everything into their mouths, it might be a good time to show them which plants are not only attractive to birds, but can be eaten by humans as well.
I suggest reading the books by Euell Gibbons and Julia Morton. Never put anything into your mouth until you are sure of what it is. Always start with just a little.
Many parents are terrified when their child puts a berry into its mouth. The following is a starter list of native plant berries that your kids and the local birds will like and that I have eaten for many years. Make sure that you wash the fruit first and that sprays aren’t being used on them.
Cocoplum is used as a hedge and has sweet white or purple fruit. The nut inside has an almond-like flavor. Purple seagrape berries make great jelly and are hard to stop eating fresh off the tree.
Native mulberry, wild blackberries, wild grapes, persimmon, pond apple, simpson stopper, and native strangler fig fruits are fun to eat as they ripen in the yard.
The olive sized fruit of the satinleaf tree tastes like sweet prunes and will leave a wad of chicle in your mouth. This is the same gum once found in Chiclets chewing gum.
Other less tasty yet edible berries include beautyberry, wild coffee, marlberry, wild cherry, black ironwood; and white, redberry, and spanish, stoppers.
Even the one-inch fruits of the native saw palmetto are edible when black and juicy in September through November, yet have a funky flavor like sweet balsamic vinegar. I personally find them delicious.
Now you can make your yard into a haven for birds and a safe place for your kids to try new natural treats. Don’t forget some sweetened elderberry juice during the summer and persimmon nut bread at thanksgiving.
Again, try one berry the first day, then increase until you are confident it won’t give you a sour stomach. And don’t eat too many as even too many grapes will cause a stomach ache.
Dragonflies
Dragonflies… Our Guardians Against Mosquitoes And Other Pests.
The sound of crinkled cellophane fills the air in mid May as thousands of dragonflies emerge from local ponds and congregate in our yards.
The gold wing skimmer seems to be the most common. I enjoy watching them and get pleasure out of knowing that the one that just dove in at me is leaving with a mosquito snack.
Although many species of dragonfly are in danger of extinction, due to man made changes to wetlands, some are actually benefiting from the lakes, ponds, canals and wet ditches that we make.
Areas that fill with water for a few weeks don’t have large fish in them that eat dragonfly larva or those of amphibians. These “seasonal wetlands “are great places for our native frogs and toads to breed in for that reason.
You can make your pond, lake, canal or even the occasionally wet portion of your yard into a haven for wildlife, including dragonflies. Plant cypress trees along the edges and fill in with bulrush, pickerelweed, cord grass and other native vegetation for cover.
Female dragonflies lay their eggs in the soil or in plant tissue along the pond edge or in floating algae mats. They will also slowly drop them into the water or drop them while racing along the surface.
Too much algae which is fed by the runoff of over fertilized lawns covers beneficial submerged plants that provide dragonfly larval habitat.
The dragonfly larva develops underwater and eats tadpoles, small fish, and mosquito larvae. It then climbs out of the water onto an emergent plant where it sheds its larval skin, pumps out its wings and dries them.
A speed boat going by at this time can knock them into the water where they will drown. Muscovy ducks can also be a problem by eating the vulnerable emergents.
Most dragonflies are local, yet some of them migrate. Certain landscape features concentrate these migrants into dense swarms which are exceptional during the more populated fall migration. September is the best time to see these southbound migrations along the coast which they follow.
Next time you see dragonflies in your yard, it might be fun to learn their names and watch for interesting behavior.
The 1.7 inch eastern pondhawk; the male is light chalky blue, the female is green, may be following you and snapping up prey that you frighten into the open. Two males will cartwheel as they change leaders 12 to 14 times while rising vertically into the air.
I recommend Dragonflies through Binoculars by Sidney W. Dunkle. This book has excellent pictures and great information. Learning dragonflies is just another way to enjoy nature watching and is very exciting when you find rare ones in your own yard.
Concentrated Birds
Birds Concentrate Where Food Abounds
Our resident winter birds arrive from September to November. These include hummingbirds, painted buntings, and blue-gray gnatcatchers, several species of warblers, sharp – shinned hawks, kestrels, peregrine falcons, and even bald eagles. Florida bald eagles begin to nest in October.
In April, they and their young fly to the Chesapeake Bay for the summer. My wife spotted one over a Publix parking lot stealing a fish from an osprey; funny how no one else noticed.
Take a closer look at the familiar and you may be surprised by something new. Eagles often mix with vultures momentarily in the sky yet keep moving rather than circle.
The male summer tanager is red like a cardinal yet without the crest. Kingbirds, phoebes, flycatchers and shrikes often look like common mockingbirds. Good grief! I just looked out the window and saw a male rose-breasted grosbeak on the feeder. I never saw one of those here before.
Why are there so many birds in the middle of all this development? Simple, there is nowhere else to find the cover and food that our small rural community offers.
Many of our native grasses like the basket grass, Fakahatchee grass, and witch grasses along with wildflowers offer their seeds.
Nuts on the oaks, and berries on a wide variety of shrubs offer plenty to the new arrivals. Even the insect pests of the summer are being cleaned off of the vegetation by migrant birds.
The native firebush not only attracts hummingbirds to the flowers but is loaded with half inch berries that the other birds fight over. Hackberry trees offer tiny berries along with elderberry, southern red cedar, bloodberry, wild coffee, snowberry and Spanish stopper.
Bahama strongbark droops with clusters of half inch orange berries. Oaks, Florida elm, red maple, hickories, sweetgum and slash pine offer nuts and seeds while coontie offers the orange covering of its nut to blue jays and squirrels.
Let the leaves fall and lay around your trees and brown thrashers, worm eating warblers and other birds will be seen picking through the leaf litter for insects.
If there are any native shrubs in the area, the seeds will be dropped by roosting birds and you will have a free, natural looking planting under your tree. No need to decide what would look natural in this case.
In fact, much of our yard has planted itself from the seeds of our installed native plants being carried away by birds and squirrels.
Just get a start with a few wild coffee, marlberry, bloodberry, beauty berry and oaks and you will be surprised at how many seedlings germinate in favorable locations. It is rare to have to pull one up.
Cold Hardy Native Plants
The Extended Cold Spell During The Winter Of 2010 Was Rough On Many Exotics And Even Some Natives.
Native plants that are full of fruit, seed and insects for birds to eat are important after a cold snap. Beautyberry, marlberry, firebush, Florida elm, red maple, Spanish and white stoppers, Strangler fig, and the last slash pine cones bear their fruits and seed for hungry birds during the winter months.
It is a pleasure to watch the hummingbirds feed on the firebush flowers and the other birds eat the variety of native fruits on the property. Our bird bath is very popular too.
Many of our native plants range from the Florida Keys to Merritt Island. Florida privet, dahoon holly, wild lime, coontie, Simpson stopper, beautyberry and saw palmetto are very cold hardy and may not show any stress at all after a freeze.
Cocoplum, bloodberry, and orange Geiger are the wimps that may die completely if exposed to freezing temperatures for long. Most other natives can take short periods of below freezing temperatures and only have leaf burn to show for it.
Some of our natives are adapted to being burned by fire or frozen to the ground and look bushier and more beautiful than ever when they grow back.
Beautyberry, necklacepod, firebush, fiddlewood and wild coffee look their best if cut to the ground every few years. Early March is the best time to do this, just before new growth starts. Or, let a cold snap do it for you.
With the warm air of the Gulf Stream currents just off our shores, we are often spared the colder temperatures that the areas south and north of us endure. Everglades National Park had temperatures in the low 20’s in February compared the low 30’s in eastern Palm Beach County.
Cold hardiness is just one of the many reasons that I like our native plants. Planting a diversity of native plants will ensure that there are berries available all year long and that a cold spell doesn’t wipe out all of the food for our local and migratory birds.
This can happen when the few fruiting exotics are killed to the ground. And who wants their seeds spread across the landscape anyway?
Look for whistling flocks of cedar wax wings and clucking flocks of robins in our skies in the winter or early spring. They may be pushed south by a lack of food in North and Central Florida. They will both flock to a native strangler fig if it is in fruit.