Keep a Bird-Friendly Yard!

Your yard and garden are a microcosm of larger ecological issues. Migrant birds and other wildlife have had to adapt to great changes in the American landscape. Much of the eastern seaboard of the United States has been altered to make room for agriculture, housing and other urban/suburban facilities. Fortunately, migratory birds can and will use backyards as stopover points or as summer homes. Your actions can have a direct impact on the lives of these migrants. From adding a birdbath to your yard to more subtle actions such as pest control strategies, homeowners are making choices about the number and types of birds they are likely to see near their homes.

Many of the pesticides used in the home and garden can be harmful to a wide variety of wildlife, including helpful predatory insects, birds, and life in nearby streams and ponds (frogs, fish, crayfish, aquatic plants, etc.). If you regularly spread pesticides on your lawn, chances are that you may have killed birds without even knowing it. For example, home and garden formulations of Diazinon and Chlorpyrifos have both been involved in a number of documented bird kills (see PESTICIDE CHART). Most bird kills are never noticed or reported because sick birds move to secluded spots to recover and any dead birds are scavenged quickly. No one willingly sets out to harm migratory birds and other wildlife in their yards, but the cumulative actions of all of us can have serious repercussions. Happily, the opposite also holds; if people change to more responsible practices in and around the home, the cumulative effects can be positive.

In these pages, we hope to give a simple overview of common home and garden pests found in the Mid-Atlantic region and introduce ideas about some of the responsible methods you can employ to control them. We offer some simple, easy to use and economical control methods, but we do not pretend to be the garden experts. Our hope is that this brief introduction will encourage people to seek more information available from more specialized sources like their local Cooperative Extension and/or garden center. Improving your actions around the home and garden is a simple and effective way you can have a positive impact on migratory birds and the environment.

Common Pests:

• Ants
  
• Aphids
  
• Chinch Bugs
  
• Gypsy Moths
  
• Lace Bugs
  
• Mice/Rats
  
• Mosquitoes
  
• White Grubs
  

Beneficial Insects:
There are many natural insect predators found in your lawn and garden. The most common examples are:

Remember, pesticides are just as lethal to beneficial insects as they are to pests.

One way to attract beneficial insects to your yard is to offer diverse habitat, and a number of nectar and pollen sources. Like other insects, insect predators require various food sources throughout their life cycles. These insects also require diverse habitats for their various life stages, so including different size plants will help create more space for them. Some examples of plants known to attract beneficial insects are:

For more info visit:
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/hgic/

http://www.ext.vt.edu/
departments/envirohort/
factsheets2/insectpest/jan94pr1.html

http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu/
deces/hyg/hyg-14.htm

Remember the Birds:
Finally, remember that migratory birds make their way to our area to feed on the variety of insects that abound in the spring and summer. Use this to your advantage. Add a bird bath to your yard (and replace the water every three days), put up a nesting box, and try to avoid using pesticides. Purple Martins, swallows and nighthawks are mosquito specialists, wrens love ticks, American Robins eat white grubs and caterpillars, Baltimore Orioles eat loads of tent caterpillars, Northern Flickers are crazy for ants, and chickadees and titmice will gleen aphids and their overwintering eggs. Welcome the arrival of our migrant species, and encourage them to stick around your yard.

Links to Local Cooperative Extensions:
Virginia
http://www.ext.vt.edu/
cgi-bin/WebObjects/
Docs.woa/wa/getcat?cat=ir-ln

Maryland
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/
users/hgic/

Delaware
http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu/deces/

Pennsylvania
http://www.extension.psu.edu/
base_nr&em.htm

New Jersey
http://www.rce.rutgers.edu/