Reverse Engineer the Bird Feeding and the So-Called Pests Go Away. Perfect Show Shoveling

Two weeks ago, grandson Alex and I stuffed four pounds of suet into various mesh bags. We had some leftovers, so we scattered those lumps around the yard.

The next day, starlings swooped into the yard to play tug-of-war with suet lumps and hang from the bags while feeding. More than 30 starlings were in the yard, day after day, rising to nearby trees to wait for additional food, such as sunflower seeds and the Big Cob of corn.

They played and washed in the bird baths, and other species came for the fun.

People grasp this with no trouble, so they should easily see how well this works with so-called pests when the scenario is changed.

Let's imagine a swarm of destructive insects has arrived, or eggs have hatched and hungry larvae are eating the crops. What we see as pests are food for:

• birds, 
• toads, 
• parasitoid wasps, 
• and spiders. 

Nothing can keep them from eating the fresh supply unless we kill the supply or poison everything with sprays and detergents.We want all those pest-eaters present, welcome, and happy in our yard, because they patrol night and day, as contrasted to the panicking gardener who runs to Lowe's, buys a box of XXX, and sprays down the plants.  

Individual statistics for each species beggar our imaginations. Each individual creature is good for thousands of creatures eaten in one season. So the real answer to garden invaders is to welcome them for the beneficial creatures they feed.

Yakety Yak

Keep all the papers - they're not trash
And that will save you so much cash.
If you don't mulch that garden floor
You ain't gonna pick no crops no more.
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Just finish building compost piles
Let's see organics and some smiles.
Get all that good stuff from the curbs
Or you wont' grow so many herbs.
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Just pick up the birdseed and the fat
And make a spider welcome mat.
And when you finish doin' that
Pull up a chair and have a chat.
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Don't you give me no weary looks
This blogger's hip, he knows what cooks.
Just build some creature-friendly nooks
And buy those Sharon Lovejoy books.
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Apologies to the Coasters

Perfect Snow Shoveling
Our snow and sleet storm from yesterday ended this morning with sunshine, blue skies, and a girl pulling her baby sister on a sled.

Our helper came over to help shovel the three driveways - ours, the Gardeners, and the Wrights. We were working on the Wrights when another neighbor came by with his shovel. We discussed how difficult it was for the husband and wife to shovel, and we finished their driveway and cars in a few minutes.

Our helper then borrowed a shovel to do his neighbor's, who lost a leg to infection.

Even Good Lovejoy Nods - My Problem with Killing Garden Pests - They Are Food for the Beneficial Creatures. Feed Them and They Will Come

Everyone is in a storm today. We expect our drenching rain to turn into sleet and then snow. Our weather prediction is - travel will be difficult to impossible.

Yesterday we went to foot doctor, so I took Trowel and Error along. The classical scholars, who have noticed flaws in Homer's Iliad, have a saying, "Even good Homer nods." In other words, the ultimate author, the foundation for all Western literature, was not quite perfect. Nor can any human author be perfect, without contractions. God has published only one Book, and that remains the only one without errors or contradictions.

These tiny ichabod - I mean ichneumon wasps -
will destroy the pests that harm the garden.

Balance of Nature - the Creator's Plan
So far, with my budding Lovejoy library of three books, I am overwhelmed with her knowledge, experience, and observations about Creation. But in one area I part company with her advice.

The balance of nature - really, the design of Creation - is "feed them and they will come."

Here is my expert in that area, who agrees with what my mother taught me 50 years ago.

It’s important to see that the population of predators always lags behind that of the prey (this is particularly true if a parasitoid is involved, as their lag time is actually a generation or two behind their host prey). If you put it on paper, it looks much like two undulating, wavy lines with the one representing the predators always hitting its peak slightly after the one representing the prey. In an undisturbed cycle, neither the population of predators nor that of prey will ever hit zero. This means that in order to sustain a healthy population of predators in the garden, one always has to have prey available. 

and it matters because … 

What does this cycle mean to a gardener or farmer? Well, all too often we take notice of a population of naughty pest insects (the prey) when their numbers hit the high point in the cycle. In the case of a pest outbreak, this also happens to be about the same time there are enough prey insects present to start luring in the beneficials. We do something to get rid of the pests just when our little natural army is beginning to work their magic. Whether we choose to eradicate the pests with a synthetic or a natural pesticide, we are inserting ourselves into the predator–prey cycle. It’s a place where, more often than not, we don’t belong. The biggest lesson here is to understand this natural cycle and be willing to take yourself out of it when the time comes.

Walliser, Jessica (2014-02-26). Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Kindle Locations 284-295). Timber Press. Kindle Edition. 

Lady beetles, named for the Virgin Mary, arrive in armadas to eat cottony scale insects,
but insect sprays kill them by the thousands.
A good idea to spray or pluck up their food? No.

Back to Lovejoy - Put Down that Weapon!
I was reading Trowel and Error in the reception room when I happened upon advice for killing insects in the garden. The basic ingredient was detergent! - in spite of many Lovejoy cautions against anything ending in "cide."

Nothing is quite so harmful to all life than detergent. As they discovered with dispersing oil spills in the ocean, detergent kills everything, wiping out life from the microscopic on up. Mrs. I's engineering firm learned about that in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. Oil is natural and disperses itself in time. Detergents aimed at crude oil eliminate all life, all fish. Birds that eat fish are going to die or move away from Ground Zero. Yes, crude oil spills are bad - but detergents are worse.

Killing all life through detergents is bad by itself, but a second problem is killing the food of beneficial insects. Take away their food and they go elsewhere to dwell, or they dwindle away.

"If you pluck up and kill my food,
I will work at the Jackson's."

When we had asparagus beetles eating the plants away, we parked a praying mantis egg case on the ferns. The insects hatched and had a feast, the damage stopped.

Other suggestions about "pests" are aimed at weeds, which are valuable in the right place. A weed that produces a lot of seed will attract birds while sheltering insects and other wildlife. Ragweed is easily treated in the lawn with regular mowing, using a mulching blade. The ginormous crab-like plant, brought over for grain, will not develop and will not go to seed. Spray or burn a mature one and the lawn will look like it was bombed.

So-called weeds are great in a wild area, with many benefits - improving the soil, feeding wildlife, and helping the bee population.

Still a Lovejoy Fan
The vast amount of Lovejoy lore shows an enormous appreciation for God's Creation, how it all integrates - every creature and plant has a purpose.

My first Lovejoy lesson was using more seedy plants, to benefit birds and bees. Now I am looking for ways to grow more berries for birds, more seeds for birds, more shelter for birds. The bees benefit at the same time, and they all benefit us, the paragons of God's Creation.

My second Lovejoy lesson was increasing the diversity of creatures and plants, which is also the plan for Queen Elizabeth's private gardens.

Sharon Lovejoy lets this beautiful herb grow, bloom, and go to seed,
as I do. The parachute seeds are good for hummingbird nests.
Only a cad would take those away.

Snow Cover Gone - New Lovejoy Books Arrive

My First Bird Book

I have been reading gardening and nature books since 1981, when we moved to Midland and had access to every possible book in this area - for adults and children  - at the Grace Dow Library. Lately I was miffed that the selection at the Barnes and Noble store was long on marijuana growing and short on anything worthwhile. The previous exception was Teaming with Microbes.

Gardening books are not classified well at that store. The selection seems random so I look over the spines for something new and different. I often take a book to the coffee area and page through it, inwardly groaning at the gardening cliches and obvious duplication of ridiculous ideas. "Give this rose extra fertilizer." By all means, try your best to kill the rose and keep it from blooming.

My favorite forehead-slapper is "Scratch Epsom Salts into the soil." Epsom Salts instantly melt into water, so that is like scratching coconut oil into one's skin. In other words, the expert had no clue - Martha Stewart in this case. She reminds me of the Stuart kings, who left an indelible bad impression on England. Besides that, Epsom Salts are great for the feet but seldom useful for soil or plants.

Sharon Lovejoy's A Blessing of Toads is a good starter for gardeners.

My second big find in the last year was Sharon Lovejoy's  A Blessing of Toads. The book gets its title from Lipton's classic Exaltation of Larks, a book listing the names we have for groups of animals: a pride of lions, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows. I was already aiming for more toads per acre when I saw the book and realized this could be good. However, I had no idea that someone could pack so much knowledge into one book.

Lovejoy matches the density of information (useful knowledge per page) with Teaming with Microbes while keeping the language simple and the work fun.

So the birdbook arrived, which I ordered in haste. For children, hmm? I paged through it and noticed Lovejoy covers all aspects, with beautiful illustrations. She explains everything about birds in great detail and has the advantage of many years of observation. Her story of chickadees ridding a section of cabbage worms (as I recall) is illuminating. She can dig up statistics, but she has great stories to tell from her own experiences  in gardening and observing nature. This is the best combination - anecdotes plus hard facts.

Besides that, the book includes an excellent bird identification guide.

We used to have those guides around the house, first when I was a child and later when I wanted to know what was flying around in the backyard. I never found those editions useful, because they featured a picture and a map of where the birds were found. Lovejoy's section is far more interesting and useful for anyone.

Sharon Lovejoy's Trowel and Error is an encyclopedia of tips for the gardener.

Snow Cover Gone - For Now
March 1 was going to be the tipping point, when the weather warmed up in Springdale. Instead, we had snow falling Friday night, Saturday snow and sleet, Sunday ice slicker than Church Growth promises.

Last night was above freezing, so the snow cover is gone, and all the plants and mulch are newly moistened. The starlings and doves are busy working over the soil around the Jackson Bird Spa, and the starlings are splashing in their newly melted baths. In cold weather they leave tracks on top of the snow and ice-filled dishes, as if to say, "Why didn't you invest in a birdbath warmer for us."

Isaiah 55:10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: 

• it shall not return unto me void, 
• but it shall accomplish that which I please, 
• and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. [bullets not in the original]

The snow is great for the South and especially needed in the West, where they count on snowmelt for agriculture reservoirs. If rain and snow have inevitable results. what about the Word? And yet people trust man's wisdom while marveling over the wonders of nature. They fail to see the connection between Creation, the Word, and the work of Christians.

For those who pay attention to the health of soil, plants, animals, and humans, snowmelt is an enormous boost to Creation in the spring, as designed by its Architect.

Below the surface of the soil, all the organic material above and within is feeding the bacteria, protozoa, and fungi. Just above the microbe level are the tiny springtails, that shred organic matter for decomposition by the microbes. The much larger slugs also shred, and the giant earthworms (by comparison) shred dead material while grazing on bacteria, sweetening the soil with calcium, and adding nitrogen for growth.

They all live on moisture, so they store moisture, locking it into the first 12 inches of soil. A quart of water will run through sand, but rich humus soil and clay will absorb the water. Even more will be absorbed by the billions of creatures in that root zone.

The bugs and earthworms peek out from snowmelt, and the birds pounce on them to feed their young. Spiders begin to spin their webs to trap the tiniest insects, and wasps use the larvae as warm, moist, moving nurseries for their eggs. The destructive larvae are also food for the wasp newborns as they hatch. Our helper said, "You have a wasp nest." I say, "Good." They make paper from the wood mulch and kill the pests. 

Ichneumon Wasps.
Admit it - you did not know they existed.

Ichneumons (“ ick-new-mons”) are mysterious and exotic wasps that are parasitic connoisseurs. Each specializes in one specific host (or a very few hosts). Ichneumons are delicately sculptured and patterned with almost infinite variety and subtlety. There are tens of thousands of species, and they are difficult to differentiate; males and females within a species often come in different shapes and sizes, dimensions of appendages, and colors (from yellow and brown to brilliant shiny metallic-blue with contrasting black and white patterns). The female possesses an ovipositor that projects out of her rear end. Depending on the species , the ovipositor can be so short as to be barely visible, or as long or longer than the wasp’s body itself. The ovipositor doubles as a stinger, but primarily it is a tool for injecting eggs into the body of her host.

Heinrich, Bernd (2008-12-24). The Snoring Bird (Kindle Locations 178-184). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.