Unrecorded wildlife magnets
As we use more native plants, we learn about their hidden qualities. Pineland privet is a good example. It is known for its bird attracting berries and ability to be clipped and shaped, yet when in flower, this shrub rivals butterfly bush.
All kinds of insects come to pollinate this native shrub, including many rare butterflies like the ruddy daggerwing and atala hairstreaks. The male plant has the most flowers, yet female plants have the berries. You will need both in order to have fruit.
While hiking in the Dade County Rocklands, I noticed that every butterfly landed on a trailside shrub. This turned out to be the Florida Keys Thoroughwort which is a woody aster with sweet smelling white flowers. It loves dry soil and full sun and survives for many years.
The borage family of plants produces some of the best butterfly attractors. These include: bloodberry, sea lavender, bahama strongbark, seaside heliotrope, scorpiontail ,pineland heliotope and hirsute tournefortia.
This last vine has hairy, five inch elliptical leaves and clusters of white flowers followed by white berries. It grows up into our oak tree and is mobbed by dozens of butterflies. These same butterflies lay their eggs on the multiflora passionvine which also climbs this tree.
Decaying leaves of borage relatives release chemicals that attract male queen and soldier butterflies which lap them off the surface. These are processed inside the butterfly into female attractants that he releases into the air.
There is both a tree and a shrub named bahama strongbark and both have sweet smelling white flowers for the butterflies and hummingbirds as well as orange berries for birds to eat. The weeping habit of the tree makes it a great specimen for the front yard.
The shrub form called smooth strongbark, grows to three feet while the tree may reach 15 feet or more.
When out on walks in natural areas or observing native plants in your own yard, you may discover a plant’s unknown quality that will help us all to attract more wildlife to our yards.
Please pass on the information
Summer Residents
Wildlife residents of the summer months will put on quite a show.
The summer is in full swing. Migrating birds left in early May and won’t return until September. Yet we still have a wonderful variety of full time resident birds to make a morning walk interesting.
The young cardinals, blue jays, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers are out learning how to survive and can be more friendly than their parents.
Sometimes they just sit and watch what we are doing. Chimney swifts dart across the sky with their high pitched chirps. They look like little cigars with wings. Purple martins are infrequent now that nesting season is over and seem to have dispersed.
Although it is a nuisance at times, our back acre has been flooded on and off for two months. All it takes is three weeks for our native toad and frog tadpoles to grow legs and disperse.
As the remaining undeveloped tadpoles concentrate into smaller and smaller pools of water, green herons, tricolor herons, ibis and other birds come to feast.
The rare ribbon snake, which also eats frogs and tadpoles, only lives in this wetland habitat and is occasionally carried off by a hawk, thus completing the food chain.
The large non native bufo toad needs long term wetlands like ponds for their slow- to- mature tadpoles to grow in.
Fish won’t eat these poisonous tadpoles, yet they will eat our tastey native toad and frog tadpoles. This is why seasonally wet areas, which don’t have fish in them, are important.
If you live next to a preserve, try allowing a small portion of your yard to flood for three weeks. The sounds of various toads and frogs calling each other will rattle your ears if you are close by and is fascinating to listen to at night.
Swallow-tailed kites are attracted to wooded lots and feed on lizards which they pick off of the trees and dragonflies caught in mid air.
This crow-size raptor is black and white with a forked tail. Its beauty and magnificence will make you jump from your outdoor chair for a better look as it glides overhead.
A mix of native trees, shrubs and ground covers with a source of water is a good start when attracting wildlife.
Dead trees, or at least branches, will keep the woodpeckers happy as they search for grubs in the rotted wood. Leave as many dead branches as you can, the woodpeckers will clean them off for you.
This fall and winter build some nestboxes for our spring-nesting birds. The box for the screech owl will be used by wood ducks and squirrels too.
Watching wildlife increase in your yard is extremely rewarding and a good way to teach kids that they have some control over stopping the continuing lose of our wildlife species.
Just start with a few native trees and you will soon be hooked as your imagination comes alive with ideas for shrubs and wildflowers to attract more birds and butterflies.
SPOOKY SOUNDS OF THE NIGHT
SPOOKY SOUNDS OF THE NIGHT CAN BE FASCINATING IF YOU KNOW WHAT MAKES THEM.
Owls and goatsuckers make weird sounds during their breeding season and keep the local rodent, insect and lizard population in balence.
You may think that your ears are playing tricks on you when you hear the low “hoo, hoo… hoo-hoo-hoo… whooo, whooooooo” of the Great Horned owl.
At two feet tall with feathery horns on its head and a grip that can crush a man’s hand, this is truly an impressive owl.
Say goodby to your local rabbits, rats, mice and even a feral cat or two. Look in tall trees near a pond or canal or watch for other birds as they mob their unwelcome guest.
They nest in winter so that their fledglings will have plenty to eat in the spring when baby birds and mammals are available.
The hawk-like screech of the Barn Owl may give you a start while it’s white face and underparts yield a ghostly appearance to this 18 inch tall owl. Found in the country and cities, this owl will clean up the local rat and mouse population.
Put up a nestbox with the help of a friend, (it is heavy), and clean it out each January before nesting starts.
A Screech Owl nestbox will attract these little owls to your yard and also Wood Ducks if placed near a pond.
The owls make a cute whinny and an eerie, staccato sound like two sticks drum-rolled on a small hollow log. Mice, Cockroaches, treefrogs and lizards make up their diet.
The fuzzy gray face of a young owl staring down at you as it fills the entrance hole to it’s nestbox will leave you laughing your fool head off.
Goatsuckers, named because their large wiskered mouths once led people to beleive that they actually entered barns to suck the teats of sleeping goats are represented here by Nighthawks, Whip-Poor-Wills and the Chuck-Will’s-Widow.
Although they are here from September to March, the rare Whip-Poor-Will is silent until just before leaving to breed along the Southeastern U.S.
The more abundant Chuck-Will’s-Widow calls non stop in the evenings of spring and early summer. The call is a low “chuck” followed by a higher pitched will’s widow.
It silently winters here south of Lake Okeechobee and breeds throughout the state and the southeastern U.S. This 12 inch tall bird is strange to watch as it flys through the trees at dusk on wings two feet across.
The courtship dive of a Common Nighthawk starts at 150 feet in the air and ends with a loud broooom as the primary feathers on it’s two foot wide,narrow outstretched wings vibrate at high speed.
Wintering in the northern half of South America, they breed throughout the entire U.S. in the spring. Chucks and Nighthawks both nest on the ground.
Watch your step when walking on gravel, even if it is on your flat gravel roof. All three birds eat insects while in flight.
Take the kids out for a fun, spooky evening identifying the strange sounds that our night birds make. Hopefully they will loose their fear of the night and enjoy camping better this summer.
Snags
Dead trees called “Snags” provide food and a home for almost one third of our wildlife. Since the hurricanes, many of our neighborhood slash pine trees have died, yet most pines in natural areas survived
Irrigation water raises the ph of the soil and prevents pines from absorbing micronutrients. Trees that were weakened by too much irrigation died when excessive rains, even a year later, rotted their roots.
Never water a slash pine and keep lawn grass away from the trunk. Also, changes in grade and soil compaction will kill pines.
If your slash pines have died, leave them to provide many birds and other wildlife feeding and nest sites. As the tree rots, beetle grubs and other insects are found under the bark by woodpeckers.
Over time, the woodpeckers create holes to nest in which are later used by other wildlife. These include screech owls, wood ducks, kestrels, flying squirrels and even raccoons and opossums.
I have seen downy woodpeckers peeking out of the ends of dead pine branches where they were likely nesting. Kestrels, which are our smallest falcon, eat insects, lizards and mice. They use the hole made by the large pileated woodpecker. Both birds are in desperate need of nest sites.
As you kill the invasive trees on your property, it will cost less to leave a snag than to pay for tree removal and stump grinding. If the dead tree is close to your house, measure the distance and cut the tree short enough to miss the house if it falls.
The trees on my property usually don’t fall but instead rot to a powder and leave only the hard pith. Australian pine makes a great snag when cut to around 20 feet.
Shelf mushrooms grow from the trunk and the woodpeckers make a hole just under this little roof. Never let dead wood touch your house or termites will enter.
If your lot is large and you can leave the trees where they are, you will be rewarded with many unusual bird species.
I personally like the unusual look of an old twisted snag and the excitement of seeing a hawk, owl, osprey or bald eagle perched on it as they wait for prey.
You may even want to plant oaks or replacement pines around the snag so that they will hold it up if it tilts in a few years.
We have dozens of dead pines on our property which were killed by the hurricanes. One by one the branches fall and the trunck rots away.
Pileated, red-bellied and downy woodpeckers have nested here and are a constant sight.
If you live near a natural area, you may be surprised by the appearance of a Bald eagle or other predatory birds occasionally resting on a branch.
Southern Slash Pine
Southern slash pine is the symbol of South Florida
Southern slash pines were once the dominant tree of this area. It is now rarely seen in our communities. Imagine each yard with at least one of these trees growing in it. Our homes would be nestled into a restored habitat going back thousands of years.
Pines drop their needles constantly, providing free mulch. This can be mowed along with the grass to add organic matter to the soil or raked into pleasant shapes around the trees.
Grass grows better near slash pine where the air is cooler and the sunlight is softer. Patches of pines can be connected with masses of saw palmetto, coontie, native grasses and native shrubs to create no mow areas that are rich in wildlife and birds.
Southern slash pines live for hundreds of years, are resistant to hurricanes, and provide food, nesting sites and cover for our birds.
Migrating birds can safely move through the branches where hawks can’t easily catch them. The seeds are eaten by several kinds of birds and squirrels and the bark and dead wood contain many insects that feed our woodpeckers.
Downy woodpeckers hollow out the ends of rotting branches to create their homes while the trunks are used by larger woodpeckers to carve out their nest cavities.
If you can’t leave a dead tree near a building for fear of falling branches, try cutting it to a 10 to 20 foot stump. The hard core will keep it erect while the soft outer portion rots away. The woodpeckers will love you for it.
When selecting a slash pine, make sure that it was grown from local seed. The North Florida slash does poorly here. Water it for a few weeks to establish only.
Slash pine will become weakened and die if watered regularly for long as they prefer dry soil. Irrigation weakened many trees which then died during the hurricanes. Try piling the needles around the trunk so you won’t need to come close with mowers or weedeaters.
Many birds join our local ones during migration for a burst of activity each morning. Warblers, hummingbirds, hawks, owls, cardinals, robins, cedar waxwings, osprey, woodpeckers, catbirds, blue jays and others decorate our pines like moving ornaments. The sounds of these birds fill the air at daybreak.
Try planting one slash pine where its needles can fall and stay. You may find yourself planting more as the years go by and you notice the increase in wildlife.
Say Goodbye
May Is When We Say Goodbye To Our Winter Residents.
Not just people, but the painted buntings, indigo buntings, warblers, hummingbirds and others that have been here since October.
The male buntings are in full breeding color and will travel up to North Florida and beyond to breed and spend the summer.
Since the fall I have watched young painted buntings gradually change from their first year green to the beautiful red, blue and green of the adult. The young indigo bunting males have changed from drab brown to shiny blue.
Unusual Migrants are moving through the area too. A female rose-breasted grosbeak, which looks like a large brown and white sparrow, was on our feeder April 17.
The males are red, black and white; can’t wait to see one. Try the Audubon Park brand,” Wild Finch Blend” to attract buntings and other seed eaters. You can find it at Albertsons.
Purple martins are still around, yet they have completed nesting here. Their nest boxes should be set out in early February in an open area, such as next to a lake.
It is exhilarating to watch these birds dive after insects; too bad they don’t eat mosquitoes.
For the first time, a sandhill crane flew over our property on its way from Winston Trails to The Links golf course in Boynton Beach. Both sites have large lakes where the cranes and other water birds can hunt for food.
This is a hint from nature that these beautifull birds might breed along the edge of our community lakes, rather than just pass through, if more native aquatic plants occured there.
Sandhill cranes are four feet tall, gray with a red cap, and have a loud, resonant, rattling call that can be heard for at least a mile away. When they fly overhead their neck is held outstraight.
Picture this: Groves of cypress, red maple, pond apple and wetland shrubs planted along lake edges with spikerush, which the cranes mound up to make their nests, bulrushes, pickerelweed, and duckpotato mixed in.
These plants provide the cover and start of the food chain that supports our wading birds. Just go to Green Cay Wetlands in Boynton Beach to see how much wildlife this environment can attract.
Don’t forget to supply a water source for our remaining birds such as the cardinals and bluejays. They will be nesting soon and can use the help.
Quail
In our 300 acre rural neighborhood, southeast of Hypoluxo and Jog roads, quail were common until 10 years ago when too much land clearing drove them off. The whistled “bob…bob-white” was a common sound in the spring and summer nesting season.
Coveys were seen in the fall and winter and broke up with the start of spring breeding. It was amazing that this year-round resident was seldom seen or heard during long stretches of the year.
The 10 inch tall Northern Bobwhite Quail was once common, but has lost 65 percent of its population in the last 20 years and is now classified as threatened. It ranges from southeast Ontario, Canada to Central America.
The removal of hedgerows by large scale agriculture has reduced quail habitat. They eat seeds, insects, fruits, leaves, flowers, acorns, roots and tubers. A water source is no problem since they drink morning dew off of vegetation.
If you live west of town, you can provide habitat for quail and attract or reintroduce them to your area. This may require cooperation with several neighbors to provide enough continuous land.
Fields with a variety of native grasses and broad leaved herbs, scattered shrubs, pines and oaks will provide the food and cover needed to support quail.
Stop mowing and remove exotic pest plants to help start your habitat. Plant scattered native trees and shrubs. Encourage native grasses like broomsedge and other native herbs.
Remember the beauty of the golden broomsedge swaying in the breeze last fall in our natural areas? This habitat is also good for painted buntings, loggerhead shrike, the sedge wren and others.
The softball sized nest of the bobwhite is built on the ground and lined with fluffy broomsedge grass and covered with surrounding vegetation to form a dome.
Poison the fire ant nests so they won’t eat the chicks and keep Garfield inside. Prevent overgrazing and mow once during late fall or winter if needed.
Your new landscape should be beautiful and blend in with surrounding natural areas. January is the time to put up your purple martin nest box too. Don’t forget to look up the latest design changes at purplemartin.org.
Native shrubs and trees fruiting in January include: wild coffee, marlberry, beautyberry, dahoon holly, firebush, red maple and Spanish and white stoppers.
With a little human involvement, many species of plants, birds and other creatures will make a comeback. Take a look at your own yard and ask yourself if you have space to include wildlife habitat.
Done right, your new planting will be pleasing to view and require less water and gas. It will come alive as birds and butterflies concentrate in their new found oasis.
Purple Martins
What Better Time Than Winter To Build A Nest Box.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website has directions for building several types of nest boxes for our local birds.
See Myfwc.com and search for “nest box”. Also, don’t forget to provide dense native shrubs like wild lime, and Florida privet for nest builders.
My favorite is the purple martin house. Go to purplemartin.org for full details and the latest research results. It is best to purchase a metal purple martin house which looks like a small apartment building.Wood gets really heavy.
Get the easy to lower pole so that you can check the chicks each week for parasites without breaking your back. You may need to change the straw bedding too.
Predators include owls, hawks, raccoons, squirrels, snakes, crows and gulls. You may want to modify an existing house, see above website, or make one yourself.
The new dimensions are seven by seven by twelve inches deep. A divider in the middle with an offset 2.25 inch hole will make it hard for predators to reach in and grab the birds. Only the back room will be used to raise the young.
The house must be painted white to reflect sunlight and keep it cooler. The male purple martin will defend the neighboring compartments, preventing others from nesting next door. Attach a divider between entrances on the outside. Good fences make good neighbors.
Placing the house on a 10 to 20 foot pole a mere 30 to 100 feet from your home and 40 feet from the nearest tree or wire (squirrels) will not only bring the viewing closer to you but also provide protection of the nests by your nearby presence.
It will be easier for you to scare away predators and control starlings and house sparrows that may occupy the nests. These are legally unprotected, non native birds that should be removed.
Place a guard on the pole to keep off raccoons and grease a small section to stop fire ants from climbing up to the chicks.
Older martins will begin to arrive in February but are only passing through on their way to last year’s nests. The yearlings will arrive about a month later and continue thru June.
They are the ones to discover and use your new nest box. The entrances should be left open until September the first year.
This year’s young, on their way to South America for the winter, will notice them and return the next spring. Once established, the house can be taken down in June and stored until February.
A combination of houses and gourds should total 24 individual nests in order to make a sustainable colony. These birds are totally dependent on the one million humans that provide them with nest homes. It is great to talk with other nest providers and share knowledge and friendships.
Now imagine looking out of your favorite picture window and seeing dozens of these large swallows swooping, darting, diving, and stopping to feed their young.
What an exhilarating sight to see each spring and to know that each bird that you are seeing was added to the population by your efforts.
Predatory Insects
Antlions And Tiger Beetles And Waterbears, Oh My!
Your yard is a miniature jungle with predators searching for prey. A child will often notice predatory insects and spend hours watching them hunt.
Ladybird beetles, spiders, dragonflies and praying mantis are just a few of the cool bugs that kids like to watch.
The larva of the antlion is called a doodlebug. This quarter inch larva, that looks like Jaba the Hut with long pinchers for mouthparts, digs a three-inch wide, cone shaped pit in loose sand.
These are found under eaves and other dry sandy places. Ants and other insects that start across this trap slide down the cone to the center and are met by this star wars-like creature.
Tiger beetles are shiny green or black with long legs and a half-inch body. They are found on dirt roads and on the beach. You may notice them running just ahead of you.
The larva lives in a vertical tube in the ground and catches passing prey. The adult runs down small insects. Robber flies, which are the same size as the tiger beetle, yet gray and hunch-backed, also fly ahead of you. They feed on deer and horse flies, so consider them to be your best friends.
Water Bears” are one-millimeter sized scorpion relatives that live in moss and other wet environments. They look like bears and eat algae and tiny creatures by first stabbing them with their walrus-like tusks.
Put a drop of water from a patch of wet moss on a microscope slide for a real safari of weird creatures.
If you have aphids on your roses, take a close look and you may see several predators controlling them for you. Orange and black lady beetle larva, green syrphid fly maggots, and lace wing larva are usually seen feeding among their aphid prey.
The brown groups of aphids are ones that were parasitized by tiny braconid wasps and are now empty shells.
By providing areas in your yard planted with native trees, shrubs and wildflowers, you can support a thriving population of predatory insects.
You can then reduce or stop using pesticides. If you start spraying pesticides again you may have to continue spot treatments, where pests erupt, until a balance of predators and prey are achieved again.
Plant Now
March is the time to plant your native garden and get a full spring, summer and fall season of growth. By next winter your plants will be fully established and bearing fruit for our winter resident and migratory birds.
Spring rains make establishment easier with just a bit of additional water and fertilizer needed to encourage root growth. There are several habitats to copy including pinelands, wetlands, oak hammock, scrub and coastal hammock.
Try to match your plants to the habitat they occur in. “Plants from around the world” sounds great yet leaves me as well as local wildlife confused.
Birds know where and when to nest and what to feed on when surrounded by the plants that they have evolved with for tens of thousands of years.
Some tropicals fruit earlier than our natives and thus encourage birds to nest too early. This is more of a problem up north where something like Japanese honeysuckle may fruit early and encourage birds to nest in its branches that are open to predators.
For a tropical look, try our native subtropical trees, shrubs and wildflowers. These are plants that have naturally entered our state from the south.
Try planting a mix of gumbo limbo, mastic, pigeon plum, paradise tree, redbay, black ironwood and live oak. Mix in wild coffee, marlberry, wild lime, limber and Jamaica caper, firebush, necklace pod and all of the stoppers.
For colorful ground covers add red salvia, spiderwort, seaside goldenrod, dicliptera, Chapman’s cassia, Key’s porterweed, beach verbena and dune sunflower. Corky passionvine and coontie will provide food for butterfly larva.
In fact the above list will provide larval food for 13 different species of butterflies as well as year round berries for your birds.
If you have a wide swale out front, this is a great place to add even more trees and reduce turf grass. For permission to plant within unincorporated Palm Beach County, simply go to the third floor of the government building located at 2300 north Jog Rd. and obtain a landscape and irrigation permit application. Jim Peters will patiently answer your questions.
Of course, check your local city and homeowners rules and make sure your underground lines are marked before digging. Call 811 before digging, no kidding; it’s expensive if you don’t.
Remember those beautiful billowy masses of pink flowers on muhly grass last summer among our roadside plantings. Do try this at home. Don’t dig up turf, just cover with newspaper or cardboard and mulch; plant in it after a couple of weeks when the turf has died.
Imagine a tree lined street that is cool, quiet and has interesting birds to observe. How many of us have grown up in this setting and yet can’t imagine it in our own yards? Enjoy your spring planting season.