Jen Tyrrell of Audubon South Carolina knows how to make our suburban and urban landscapes inviting and nourishing to our state’s bird species. It starts with–you guessed it–native plants! But there’s a lot more here to learn about inviting birds in and keeping them healthy and safe.
I’m gonna get into some bird friendly backyards and um we’re g to talk about why birds need our help and why we need to make our backyards bird friendly and I’m GNA go over some of the native plant stuff too but I am preaching to the
Choir here you guys know a lot about that so I won’t go into too much detail um because it’s all stuff you guys know but uh as far as bird friendly backyards go um and because I am a uh professor of ory or I used to be um I always like to
Do quizzes so if anyone wants to type in the chat what this bird is and what this plant is uh you get bonus points so feel free to do that um if you would like if anyone knows I see some of you quickly typing American goldfinch very good very good
And you guys probably get to see them in purple cone flower y very good so quick fun fact about the uh American goldfinch they are one of the they are one of the very um few birds that are actually uh strict vegetarians they really don’t go
After insects so I’m going to be talking a lot about insects during this talk but the goldfish is one of the few who don’t really eat them so kind of a fun little fact there um so one of the reasons why I do a lot of what I do is because a
Cornell study found that one in four birds are gone since 1970 so birds have declined um for a lot of different reasons uh and a lot of it is native plants and the use of non-native plants and Landscaping as well as uh window and building collisions and uh outdoor cats
And just a lot of different things have affected Birds um unfortunately so we need to do everything we can to help them um overall we’ve had a 2.9 billion Birds gone since 1970 so one in four is about that number um and it’s uh it’s keeping or continuing to go down and uh
Climate change has only increase um the rate of uh Birds you know decreasing in population so the Survival by degrees uh uh study that came out from oton it’s called Birds tell us uh it talks about the five 389 species on the brink so it’s about onethird of the birds in
North America are actually threatened due to climate change and just climate change not other things and then um looking at this map here if you’re not familiar with uh bird flyways this is a a m atory map and it shows South Carolina right here and it shows different bird migration tracks based on
Different species groups and you can see we’re in a kind of a hi traffic area a lot of birds use our state for breeding through migration and for winter so year round our yards are very important to Birds um there are about 9914 species in uh North America give or take depending
On who you talk to 389 of them are threatened due to climate change and 140 of them are considered uh scdnr priority species oh I’m sorry 162 are DNR priority species and then 140 are the number of climate threatened birds in our state I got those numbers mixed
Around um so either way we have a lot of birds here and a lot of the birds are in trouble so we’re g to talk about the threats that they face um in 1940 you could see the housing density here in North America it’s not very dense uh you know there’s
A couple Pockets where our major cities were but um a lot of our nation looks like this big swats of native trees and old growth forests and agricultural lands and things like that but fast forward to today and um from 1940 up to the projected housing density for 2030
There’s a lot more people and there’s a lot more dense red areas of urban and Suburban habitat and a lot of those places unfortunately look something like this so you know to the um lay person you might say oh that looks kind of nice everything’s symmetric everything’s set
Up in a neat little row but for a bird this is a desolate place with very little food it’s full of poisons and threats and all sorts of bad stuff and one of those bad things is my computer doesn’t want to work hopefully it doesn’t jump a whole bunch
Of slides there we go um is window strip so one thing I want to talk to you guys about because we are native gardeners and we’re big on native plants and I’m sure a lot of you have them around your home which is attracting and feeding
Birds which is awesome but if you have birds hitting your windows you’re not really helping the birds in general you’re kind of creating a bit of a death trap so um you know thinking about if you have window Collision issues in certain areas um on your home to you
Know mitigate those and we’ll talk about that in a little bit but um this imprint here you could see on the window it’s interesting birds have a very specific type of feather called powder down it’s a feather that kind of breaks off into tiny little um particles and it helps to
Waterproof and it helps to prein their feathers and so when they smack it to a window that powder down leaves an imprint so that’s why it looks like that it’s not oils or anything like that it’s that very specific feather meant for pining um I kind of got off track there
But uh up to a billion Birds die a year from window strikes um can’t see all of you right now but usually if I’m doing this talk in person I say how many of you have ever had a bird hit your window and pretty much everybody raises their
Hand and then I say how many of you had it more than once and then even more people raise their hand so it happens to everybody so if you think about that everybody’s had it happen how many people do we have in the United States
How many windows do we have and then a lot of times we’re not around when it happens either um Predators have become really good at hearing that thump when the birds hit the glass and then they come by and pick up the body so so if you have a problem window that you’ve
Noticed it happened once or twice it’s probably happened a lot more because other Predators like raccoons foxes cats what have you are picking up the bird that’s died from hitting the window so big problem car collisions are another big one uh 340 million Birds die a year
From getting hit by cars and there’s something you could do pretty easily to um you know stop this a lot of people think um throwing something like apple cores or banana peels out your windows and a big deal because it’s biodegradable if you’re on a car trip
Because no one wants a smelly banana peel in the car if you’re got another two hours till you stop but by doing that you’re attracting rodents to the side of the road and you know what hunts rodents but Hawks and owls and Eagles and things like that or maybe you’re
Attracting a squirrel or a possum who then gets hit by a car and then what’s eating that dead squirrel or a possum a black vulture or a turkey vulture or bald eagles they’re BigTime scavengers and they often get hit by cars so um hanging on to your food until you get to
A rest stop and throwing it away is the best thing to do um this is a black vulture unfortunately this is a squirrel for my yard um so I think it was just unlucky timing with this one wasn’t really trash related um but the vulture
Came to pick it up for us so that was nice um cats uh God bless them I love cats I have a cat there’s a cat sleeping here who also might make an uh unscheduled Interruption during this talk but cats kill the most recent number I heard was three billion Birds a year
So that’s a lot so if you have a cat um if you can keep it indoors that’s the ideal thing my cat um well we’ll talk about him in just a minute because I’ve got a picture of him later but he’s leash trained and I have a ctio and all
Sorts of stuff um leaf blowers something you wouldn’t really think about being an issue for Birds leaf blowers are so kind of violent when they’re you know blowing leaves and um causing disturbances they’ll actually cause Birds to abandon their nests in the springtime so if you
Have like G aelas or shrubs that you know birds are nesting in do your best to avoid that area if you’re using a leaf blower now this is some of the preaching to the choir stuff this is kind of shocking for people who love the Green Lawn and Golf Course looking habitat or
Golf Course looking yards um you know we look at this and some people say oh that’s lovely but we know that it requires weekly mowing in emissions and time uh there’s monoculture there’s no diversity there you have to put on fertilizers you have to water it um fungicides insecticides weed killer
There’s all sorts of Maintenance and resources being dumped into this lawn and for what it doesn’t really doesn’t really do anything and Lawns are also um so they’re biological deserts and they’re the most irrigated crop in the United States which is crazy to think about um you know water is somewhat of a
Finite and precious resource in some places and the fact that we’re just watering grass for the you know more than any other food source is insane um and Lawns cover an area in the United States three times the size of New Jersey New Jersey isn’t that big but
Still that’s a lot of space of you know useless resource sucking grass um and they also can contribute to flooding issues because their roots are shallow and they’re so compact it almost acts like an impervious surface um not quite like asphalt or anything like that but
If you have a heavy rain and you have a grassy area you’ll see you know the water just kind of running straight off of it um and Lawns you know at one point in time served a purpose uh back in the feudal system you would have a castle or
A central Village and you had a grassy area all around it so you could see the Marauders coming to you know kill you and steal your kids or something like that so at that point it was it made sense um but they also used it for
Grazing and things like that but um as time went on different sports uh became popular and became the symbol of high society and uh so Lawns were actually considered a showing of wealth because if you had land that you didn’t have to use for food production and you had
Someone um that you either owned or paid to cut that lawn to keep it flat it was just a huge show of money it’s like you know parking a Ferrari in your front yard I guess um so it was very desirable everybody wanted a lawn and up until the
Invention of the lawn mower people couldn’t not everyone could afford a lawn but then the lawn mower happened and it made the lawn possible for the Average Joe so this is a picture of the first lawn mower which actually doesn’t look that different from some of the
Ones that uh you know they ride around on on the highway medians um except I think it was like coal and steam powered or something but we went from this sort of lawnmower very old clunky technology to yard roombas so it’s come quite uh quite far but long story short grass is
Great in some places but for the most part we don’t need huge expanses of Lawns they don’t serve a lot of purpose and they um use a lot of resources so that being said how can you help uh Bob this is from Sullivan’s Island when we
Caught one of the Cooper’s Hawks um oh very nice thank you okay go shut the door um someone just finished a picture she was coloring um so this is from Sullivan’s Island where Bob and I did some banding together that’s a Cooper hawkk so one of the first things you
Could do um you know restore habit with native plants which I bet a lot of you are doing which is awesome um so I’ll kind of go into why native plants are better for Birds um You probably all know the answer to this question um but
Birds eat a lot of insects 96% of landbirds feed insects to their chicks if any of you have bird feeders out there think oh my Cardinals ate you know black oil sunflower and my tip myice seat peanuts and things like that well they have to feed their chicks
Protein and so they feed them caterpillars um so if you have chickies in your yard coming to your feeders one nest of chickies eats 390 to 570 caterpillars per day or in the time it takes to fledge about two weeks over 9,000 caterpillars just from one n to
Chickies the chickies are tiny they’re itty bitty little things um and chickies can have up to I’ve seen a record I think it was like 10 eggs in one Nest or something and chickes often will have multiple Broods in a year so that just goes to show you how many any insects
Just one little family of chickies needs um you know let alone all the other birds that are in your neighborhood and in your yard uh so as you know specialization is key 90% of the insects that eat plants can uh eat only the native plants for which they co-evolve
So you know it’s a whole host plant system which I I know you guys know a lot about but when we’re talking about like the biggest bang for your buck when you’re planting native plants in your yard to help feed the birds and have a big um insect load Oaks are really the
The key species Oaks are awesome they support up to 500 yeah they support up to 537 species of caterpillars a ton um compared to the Geno tree here which is a very pretty tree has great fall color um very decorative but only four species of caterpillars so if you uh I know
Outside of the Charleston museum there’s this huge row of nothing but gko trees sure is pretty in the fall but um pretty useless too they don’t really provide much for anything so we also need to think about appreciating former pests so I bet a lot of you know what this is if
You know it can you type it in the chat let’s see if anyone L yeah I heard someone say it alll FR yeah very good and then what is its um host plant it’s eating anyone know paora very good I heard a couple very good so pasiflora naop or Passion vine
Um this is from my front yard I planted some um this has gone kind of nuts uh but I’m glad it it pops up kind of everywhere in my front yard now and then um a couple weeks ago when the golf fle areas were really moving through it was
Like constantly at least 12 butterflies in my yard at all times looked like a little fairy party or something it was so fun and I’ve got Crysis is hanging off my house and my bird bath and um and the kids are raising them inside to you know learn about the whole process so
Very cool great bug I don’t think birds eat this type of caterpillar because if you look at it looks like it uh probably hurt going down um so in the fuzzier caterpillars like tent caterpillars one of the few birds that can actually eat it is the yellow Bill cuckoo um I’m not
Sure if any of you have seen a cuckoo around they make really really interesting noises so when they show up in the spring they have this like kind of noise um and they I don’t know they sound very exotic but they are one of the few that can actually eat uh the
Hairy caterpillars because they ingest it and then they’ll actually regurgitate the lining of their stomach with all the hairs and stuff wrapped around it and they’ll kind of like spit it out so um they’re especially adapted to handle those so if you have a big outbreak of tent caterpillars and your pantries um
The cucko are going to come and enjoy those um so it’s interesting see how that kind of fluctuates year to year you get a bunch of cuckoos you get a bunch of tank caterpillars and then one year you don’t um but anyways learning to appreciate former pests which I know you
Guys uh you know you plant native plants to help all the animals and the bugs so this is not a problem for you because those former pests are turning into beautiful things like butterflies and the price of their bunching is very much worth it um and so you know planting
Host plants in your yard is a really big deal and some of the uh the more common you know host species that we think of is milkweed and the passion vine and pawpaw and things like that but think about the big generalist species too The Oaks Willows and the prunus um genus
Those are all really good caterpillar providers um and then I also tell people uh you know think about the former pests as free bird food so if any of you feed um bluebirds uh if you feed them meal worms meal worms can get pretty pricey
And I know I think it’s like they can plow through a thing of you know 1,000 mealworms pretty quickly you know in a week or something like that but when you know that just a nest of chickies goes through 9,000 caterpillars just think about monetarily how much that free food
Is actually worth out in your yard knowing how much you spend on C or mealworm larv for uh for the birds so it’s it makes sense Financial sense so there’s other things um aside from just planting the right plants uh there’s different Garden structures and elements that you want to consider when you’re
Planting for Birds um Birds mostly need in a habitat food shelter and safe passage so food is going to mean a lot of different things depending on what species you’re talking about shelter can come in a different few different forms because Birds use shelter in different
Ways in different times of the year and then safe passage you know do they have if you’re feeding them with a feeding system do they have a place to scoot to like a um evergreen shrub or a brush pile if a Cooper’s Haw comes through there’s all these little things you got
To think about um when you’re kind of feeding the birds and attracting them to make sure it’s safe um now this one is uh both pretty common species I bet you guys probably know them what’s the bird anyone let’s see oh good question about the bald
Cyprus I don’t think so actually I don’t think they’re very good hosts oh bald cypress Spinx Ruby thired hum yeah so this is a ruby thirded hummingbird and then what it’s on which I bet a bunch of you know is a butterfly weed so it’s a
Milke weed variety um and I’m sure that butterfly or that hummingbird was drinking the nectar from there but when you’re planting for Birds you want to think about um planting for all four seasons so first thing in the spring you want um those caterpillar sources for the birds when they’re raising their
Chicks which is going to be happening very quickly in the spring and also early nectar sources um some of the really early nectar sources are red bud which is what that Bluebird is sitting on in the upper right corner um Holly trees American holly they have very
Early Blooms and so all the native bees go nuts for them um so think about the first bloomers and then once we get into so spring summer um we’re going to go to the bottom left here with the hummingbird and I’m sure you guys know the the Cardinal flower um so when you
Have plants in your yard you want to think about the blooms all four seasons which you guys know for nectar Birds anyways so do you have something blooming in the spring fall um and summer uh but then also you know are they providing caterpillars the entire
Time and then once you get into later in the year into fall you get a lot of migratory Birds coming through so as you can see this little um Beauty Berry in the bottom hand uh bottom right hand corner is full of great berries and migratory Birds kind of time their
Migration with a lot of these berries that come out um so Beauty berries aren’t the only bright purple berries that they like um anyone who’s been bird banding in the fall knows that poke weed is also a very popular Berry because the birds um they eat them a whole lot and
Then when you put them in a little bird bag once you capture the bird and you bring it back to get processed they poop purple all over the place and the cat birds like to poop on on you and you end up covered in like purple stains and
Sometimes it doesn’t come out so um those purple berries and also like the uh the cherries and um some of the Vining species they all have berries that time of year all the scrubby habitat that’s great fuel for migratory Birds another really good one uh treewise for the fall and uh bird
Migration is the southern magnolia okay um she finished her homework um the southern magnolia is a really good one their little fruits from the cone are very popular with brown Thrashers Mocking Birds um uh woodpeckers um let’s see what else cat Birds uh so a lot of the bigger Birds
Especially thrushes um they love the Magnolia cones and if you have some uh it’s a great spot to just sit and watch on a good fall day you’ll get varos in it so Birds just go for uh Magnolia and also the Dogwood so Eastern Dogwood or flowering dogwood those berries in
Particular or fruits are full of uh fat and protein so they’re really really good energy for when they’re needing to make a big flight and usually the birds will fly overnight so if you’re familiar with bird migration um most song birds will migrate you know as soon as the sun
Goes down they start getting up and you can actually look at the weather radar during the fall and you’ll see all these circles around weather radars that aren’t rain and that’s all the birds lifting up into the air to fly through the night um and they do that mainly so they can
Navigate by the stars and using um the um magnetic poles but they also do it to avoid Raptors because Raptors will migrate during the day they use those thermal lifts um to efficiently fly south for the winter um and so if they’re out during the day all the song
Birs don’t want to be way up in the air just getting picked off by all the Raptors so um I forget where I was going with all that anyways they they fuel up for migration using things like Magnolia and dogwoods and um all those good purple berries in the shrubby habitat so
If you had poke Queen in the yard leave it be um it’s a big bird food and then come wintertime the wintering berries is a you know a good thing to consider like yopon Holly is a great one Cedar Wax Wings love yopon Holly as well as
American holly um and then we also have I’m not sure what the Robin is sitting on that might be Winterberry um one of you might know better than me but anyways the robins really enjoy the berries um think another winter Berry species oh uh wax
Myrtle so if you have wax myrtle CED or not Cedar Wax wings um the yellow rumped warblers we also call them butter butts they’re little gray Birds but they’ve got a bright yellow patch right above their tail they come down here almost solely for um those wax myrtle berries
That’s mainly what they eat and again when you catch them in the fall or the winter time um your bag will end up being full of mostly digested wax myle berries in the bottom um and also tree swallows big big flocks of tree swallows will come down and swarm wax mytle
Bushes to eat the berries and tree swallows you think of them as aerial insectivores but they also love the berries so anyways planting for all four seasons think about what the birds need year round and increase variety so looking at not only just species type but structure birds will actually get
Together in what’s called a mixed foraging flock so they’ll get together in a bunch of different species and they’ll all kind of move through a habitat together and the advantage of that is safety by numbers you know because cooper hawks and sharp chins are hanging around ready to pick off Birds
Um as they go but if you’re in a group you’re safer and if you’re in a group of mixed species you’re not competing with each other so you’ll have nut hatches coming along you know eating seeds out of pine cones and then you’ll have viros
Kind of eating seeds off the ends of the trees and then you’ll have threshes on the the ground turning over leaves um Cardinals in the midstory grabbing berries so think about your diversity of habitat structure so tall canopy trees an understory a shrubby layer um a low
Ground layer you know kind of just think about how much structure you have the more structure you have the more diversity you have um also gives you different opportunities to introduce different species in your yard too all right next slide oh it is unresponsive let’s go here um water so a
Lot of people um like to offer bird baths and not all bird baths are created equally um and a lot of people think oh they just need water in the summertime when it’s really hot but birds actually get a lot of their drinking water especially they’re young they get it
From their food it’s called metabolic water so they digest their food and uh Magic of biology it makes water and they are able to sustain themselves off that because if you think about chicks in a nest the parents aren’t bringing little you know water bottles to them they were
Actually able to get it from their food but during the winter time when temperatures are freezing that’s when some of the birds will go crazy if you have a heated bird bath that that is a resource that they don’t have access to if the water is frozen so if you feel
Like giving them um a little birdie Spa they sell bird bath heaters or just heated bird baths and uh you’ll be very popular with the birds especially the Cedar Wax wings um and other elements of a bird bath that you want to think about um it doesn’t matter too much if it’s
Raised up on a pedestal or if it’s on the ground if you think about it they’re naturally you know taking baths and puddles and so having a bird bath on the ground totally fine um you want to think about how uh prone to predation are so
If it’s out in the open or there’s shrubs nearby where a cat could hide out while they’re taking a bath and then come out and get them just think about those um possibilities and then with the depth of a bird bath they really don’t like water very deep at all I would say
Maybe it didn’t so some of those nice deep Bowl bird baths they’re not going to be very good because unless a bird can sit on the edge and just drink out of it um it’s not real useful for them they need only about that much water so
They can get in there and bathe and sometimes they get worried if it’s a dark color they can’t tell how deep it is so you can put some like River Rocks in the bottom and then they love and they’re drawn to the sound of running water um so they sell some bird uh
Fountains or bath fountains that like kind of shoot up in the air that might be a little bit much but you know the birds will still come to it but a little bubbling one like this I just took a screenshot of a YouTube video earlier today but a little bubbling one like
This to create that water sound and then also to keep mosquitoes from breeding in there is perfect for Birds um and leaving dead snags I’m sure you guys are very familiar with this but dead snags provide a lot of different um resources and things for different
Species uh this one is kind of a funny long story of um my neighborhood so this was my neighbor’s backyard uh she lives two doors down and she had I believe it was an old I if that’s a I don’t think that’s a pecan Tre I can’t remember what
Kind of tree it was but it died and they cut most of it down but they left the main um trunks because she thought the birds would like it this is before she knew me um and I said you are absolutely correct because uh the dead snags
Provide many many services for birds and then she got real lucky where this little Screech Al moved in and raised the family for a couple years in a row and then a couple years ago I think it was two or three by now the cavity had rotted out so that’s what happens with
Snags they rot it’s what they’re supposed to do so the bird couldn’t nest in there anywhere so I immediately went to Birds Unlimited and got myself a screech owl box and tried to steal her owl well the first year it ended up nesting in a neighbor was like old torn
Down shed um but the following year last year it nested in our box and it was like the best thing ever because we were you know Co and quarantine and we just obsessed over our owl family um so very very fun but uh leaving dead snags is
Very important for a lot of bird species um like Screech outs but also it became a really big issue for eastern bluebirds so a lot of people love bluebirds um they’re very recognizable and if you’re a bird lover like Bluebirds have got to be up there on your list but they
Actually declined greatly in numbers because people kept taking down natural cavities and dead snags some birds are what you call secondary cavity nesters which means they rely on either natural cavities to just happen like a a branch fall or they rely on a woodpecker or something else to excavate a cavity and
Then leave it and then they go and move into it and use it so they are secondary cavity nesters meaning they just will take what’s available they cannot make their own um and so any bird that is like that like chickies or titmice or screech owls or Bard owls um they rely
On these dead snags to naturally occur but we didn’t think they looked nice um and so a lot of people tore them all down and so the bluebird population plummeted and they were not common at all until people started to put up houses for them and now we’re trying to
Spread the word that if you have a dead snag on your property and it’s not going to fall in your house you should leave it because a lot of birds really benefit from it so not only for the cavities but it provides a place for them to hide
It’s a great source of insects because as that dead snag dies and breaks down there’s lots of insects in there to um you know feed a lot of different species of birds it’s kind of like a big giant bird feeder in your yard if you have a
Dead snag um so it just is a great great ecological value for not just Birds but a lot of different species now brush piles that is my favorite uh lazy gardening thing to do aside from the leaves um when you have a brush pile it creates a really good safe
Place for birds to hide and also you probably know it creates good habitat for um different insects and like burrowing rabbits and uh pretty pretty much anything it’s a great spot um for many different species but I have seen I have a brush pile in the back of my yard
And instead of bagging up a lot of my yard debris or trying to burn all the sticks and stuff like that I just shove it all in a pile back where the neighbors can’t see it and it won’t bother anybody and I’ve seen a number of times um Thrashers and sparrows
Especially during the winter time they dive into it to escape Hawks and then the Hawks will sit on the outside trying to get in but they can’t get to them so it’s a really good shelter for Bur and then it’s also a good um source of food
As that you know material breaks down it creates insects and habitat for them so it’s just a really good uh allaround thing to do and you can get real fancy with them this is from um I think his name is Crest I forget which book this
Is from but this is a great way to make a really nice brush pile I get kind of lazy I just take a you know wheelbarrow full of stuff just shove it all in the corner and call it a day but you can um be real elaborate and make really good
Good structures and uh give some of the bigger animals places to run and to hide in the bottom of it and this is um an example of an easement we have um it’s an easement right up next to a residential area and they unfortunately had to take down some Pines they were
Getting really close to the house um and so the woman who lived there said oh I want to you know do something for the Wildlife and feel terrible about taking these trees down and so she used that method um and made a brush pile and she said literally the next day they’re like
Chickies and Rens poking around in there and getting food and bugs so they’re uh they speak for themselves now in addition to structures in your yard um for you know gardening for Birds there’s a couple of best management practices which again I think for a lot of you this is going to be
Preaching to the choir but there are some other things in there that I think um are kind of a big deal especially with um folks who plant native plants because um when we plant native plants we bring the birds in which is awesome but if we don’t have safe windows or if
We have outdoor cats it’s um it’s kind of a death trap form him so we want to make sure we’re doing the right thing and not you know having good intentions but it going all wrong uh so right here I have uh this is my front window of my
House these are bird friendly dots from feather friendly um this big picture window is great because I could sit right on my couch and watch the bird feeders but especially in the winter time when I get big flocks of black birds if a predator buzzes a yard they all
Burst up into flight to try and get away and all have multiple hit the glass window and so the first time that happened I was like oh my gosh it’s couldna never happen again and so I installed these feather friendly dots and it stopped it immediately so there’s
A lot of different options for uh window treatments um that you know look different you can do temporary ones if you see it’s just a seasonal thing exterior screens are really one of the easiest and best ways to um keep birds from hitting your windows so if you have
Screens on your windows you’re good but if you have a big picture window like this or sliding glass doors that’s another big one that kills Birds there are a number of different options DIY or readymade off the internet that you can do um you can see I’ve got my Miss
Flower here so I’ve got the the bird friendly trifect at bird safe glass the Miss flower and then my cat Clark Griswald that’s in there um he is inside and he is wearing his harness because when he goes outside he’s on a leash which is that’s him and walking with me
Although he is probably like 15 pounds heavier from that picture he’s a big boy um so it can be done if you want to get a cat if you don’t already have one once they’re adults they really don’t like having harnesses put on and it’s a whole
Thing but I started him very very young with a harness and he does great so he he’s my little traveling companion so another thing that you probably know to do um you know being native plant folks is leaving the leaves um this is uh so this picture it was the
Only one I could find of a really good leaf picture in our um photo library from oton but this is called a varied thrush they rarely ever show up here I think one showed up here maybe last year or the year before it was very exciting
Um I didn’t get to see it but thrushes in general Thrashers Robins if you have Leaf litter on the ground and you have a flock of them moving through just watch them they just pick up and they turn over leaves they flick leaves over they’re looking for all those little
Insects the crystallises the eggs you know whatever is under there um they love to turn leaves over and that’s how they Forge so leaving the leaves on the ground if you can is ideal because it creates really good foraging habitat for the birds but as you know if you
Actually get rid of the leaves if you have to bag them up you have an HOA that’s GNA you know get on your case you know when you bag them up you kind of end up throwing away a lot of things that you want around like the luna moth
Cocoons and all the different all the eggs that are laid on those leaves that fall the in the fall and then in the spring all those caterpillars come out and that’s what the birds need so you’re throwing away all their food sources um for the springtime when the birds need
It the most when they’re raising chicks um so if you can you know save as many leaves as you can and either rake them underneath of a bush or put them in your brush pile just so they’re still there that will at least um preserve the eggs
For all that spring food for the birds um but I know HOAs are rough luckily we don’t have one so I leave mine on the ground but I’m sure my neighbors love it but either way uh something to consider so not only just keeping them but if you can keep
Them on the ground so the birds can use them for foraging that is ideal now this one really bothers when I talk to Garden clubs they all go when I show them this one um if you don’t dead head flowers uh the birds want those seeds that’s what
They’re going here for in the winter time so the eona cones just leave them up there if you really have to take them off you can cut them and then just like put them on the ground ground underneath so you don’t have to look at them so
They’re not sticking up into the air um but the birds are using those uh seed cones um for food in the winter time especially like the goldfinches um and then also which I’ve learned more recently and you guys probably know too A lot of the pollinators um I’ve heard
This vaguely labeled as pollinators I’m sure there’s a much more specific group of insects that do this but they’ll overwinter into this the hollow dead stems so they’ll go in there and kind of sleep in there and if you get rid of those I mean there goes your spring
Pollinators again so not tearing apart your garden and cleaning it all out is um the best thing to do if you can just turn down your tidy meter and you know just let it go that’s the best thing to do maybe not your front yard if other
People have problems with it but in your backyard Just Let It Go Wild um and also thinking about where you’re getting your plants from again this is name of Plant Society you guys know where to get your plants from uh local Growers people that you know and
Trust that are not going to be bathing your plants and neon nanoids um neon nanoids are thought to be one of the causes of the colony collapse disorder um which is affecting honey bees which we I mean honey bees are awesome but we also really care about the native bees
They’re also declining it’s affecting them too um but then also things like monarchs and other pollinators they think the neonic noise is causing issues with them as well and a lot of nurseries are phasing them out um except for Ace Hardware and that may have changed that
Was a few years ago when I heard that so uh a lot of big box stores are now starting to put like be safe on the tags if you have to go to Lowe’s and you’re picking up something so just check labels if you can to see if it says be
Friendly or be safe uh because then it shouldn’t be using the new enct noids because apparently even if you get seeds that are coated in it like some of the coated I’ve seen it like eonia seeds and um I forget what brand does it but
They’ll coat it in this and it gets into the pollen and that’s when the pollinators go they get the pollen and they eat it and then it affects I think it’s a nervous system issue um so anyways try to avoid pesticides if you can because it also affects Birds pretty
Terribly and there’s some recent studies about it and I need to add it to this um this uh presentation because um a paper was recently published talking about how much uh neoneko um in some of the insect populations were affecting populations up I think it was black birds or
Something sorry that’s very vague I’ll have to look that up and added in there so you know there’s seven simple things you can do to help save birds in your yard reducing um pesticides using your native plants cats and doors yes uh how bad okay I think she’s okay just get a
Paper towel okay we’re good when she comes in and says cor is bleeding anyways I don’t hear screaming it’s probably fine um so keeping your cats and doors making your windows safer so these are the two that we’re kind of concentrating on um or three I would
Say uh and also invasive species you guys know this as well as I do invasive species they’re not good for many different reasons they sha Shadow out or shade out the native ones crowd them out um and you get situations like that one before um heavenly bamboo is a very
Popular non-native species but um you know it might be in your front yard it has really pretty red berries that the birds do like to eat but there is a s alkaloid cyanide I think um hydrogen alkal I don’t know something like that but either way the berries when eat
Eaten in mass quantities um like Cedar Wax Wings do they’ll come down to a shrub and just eat as much as they can because they’re trying to you know get away from their foraging habits at quickly so they don’t get picked off by a hawk so they Gorge Gorge Gorge and
Then they eat all these berries and then they die of cyanide poisoning um so so if you have Heavenly bamboo in your yard if you can’t get rid of it just snip off the berries so the birds don’t eat it it’s also toxic to dogs and kids and all
The other things we like so um if you can get rid of heavenly bamboo that’s a good one and obviously choosing native alternatives to uh the non-natives there’s a native with syia as you know trumpet creeper is fantastic for hummingbirds they love it those tubular red and orange flowers um it fits their
Bill um fits the bill uh so it’s they’re adapted to feed out of it you know um and then obviously Chinese privet terrible in so many ways um and there’s multiple kinds of it uh but yopon Hol is a great alternative um and I’m sure you guys also know that you can
Make tea out of it and that’s what the Native Americans used to use as coffee it’s has caffeine in it um so I wouldn’t recommend eating the berries as we all know it’s IEX vomitoria that sounds like fun for No One except for the birds it doesn’t bother them
Um and so you know now if you’re you guys again know all this but when it’s time to find the right native plants for you and your yard um there’s a couple resources you can go to which I bet a lot of you already know about but we
Have a very specific bird related one so if you really want to if you don’t know a whole lot about birds but you want to get more in your yard so you really like Orioles or I really like Cardinals or you know um the goldfinches are my
Favorite you can go to a database that aabon has made it’s called Autobon native plants it’s a native plant database you put in your email and your zip code and it will bring up um all the results or you know best matches of native plants in your area that are
Recognized for bird um benefits and then you can also search so if you look up here you know you’re looking for types of plants say I really want a tree in the yard and I really want it to attract um say blue jads or something so you can
Say what type of plant and attract what type of bird you can pick the bird group um say oh we don’t have many woodpeckers around I’d love more of them you know you could just kind of use that um that search method so you can see how to
Attract some of your favorite birds that you want to see more of and then um that’s a native plant data base and then you guys you know this is all the aabon version of plants for Birds but you guys have a lot more detailed and uh good resources for um
Native plants and I I bet a lot of you probably already know about this one but the Clemson Extension um Carolina Birds I’m sorry Carolina yards database the plant database I use that all the time when I’m doing native plantings because it’s all about the right plant and the right place um if
You haven’t used it before it’s awesome because you can pick like I want to pick a native plant I live on the coast it’s in full sun it has poor drainage it has sandy soil versus clay soil you can pick out all these different factors and then
I’ll give you a list of native plants that would do well in those conditions so it’s taking a lot the guess work out of my yard you know because I think like oh I would love a whole bunch of dahon Holly and then you know it turns out
It’s not the right spot for it at all and I’ve just killed a bunch of dahon Holly um so using that has really helped me fine-tune and then I’ll go to the plants for Birds database and say like I know I’ve seen Orioles around I’d like
Them in the yard more so you know I look up those plants and then I look up I cross reference that with the Carolina plants or Carolina yards database and it just gives you like the best full picture of what plants you need to plant your yard
Um so I think in your guys’s area uh mil Creek greenhouse and wingard’s Market are two good ones it are there any others I might not know about other ones you have any other good ones up there uh Sal’s old timey Feed and Seed you just started selling native plants
Oh nice okay good to know good well yeah those um I know know the folks from Mil Creek and Wingers um and they’re great so it’s good to hear that more people are picking up on it especially the more smaller local stores that people probably been going to for
Years you know it helps introduce native plants to people who probably wouldn’t be aware of them before um and if you’re in the Charleston area we have a number of different good ones um roots and shoots in West Ashley up in mullenville there’s um I think it’s Bottle Tree
Nursery and uh down on Spring Island they grow their own so you know now thankfully because this whole movement is picked up more and you know good folks like you have been preaching the native plant word um you know for a number of years it’s become a lot more
Popular of a thing to do so thank you guys for all you do for native plants but let me see I think that is pretty much yeah that’s a native plant database I was talking about um yeah that is that is pretty much all I have so if you guys
Have any questions for me let me know all right guys let’s uh if you have questions I was I was scanning through the chat I think we’ve probably addressed most of the questions there um Jen I know you mentioned in the bio and um that you’ve been you’ve done
Some plannings here in the Midlands area um any uh any plans for anything additional or any any comments about what some of the projects you’ve done around here like at lace house for Governor’s mention yeah the governor’s mentioned lace house are the mains main ones that we’ve
Worked on in the Columbia area and the Midlands area and they thankfully because we know the grounds crew there and it’s the same folks um they’ve done a great job taking care of it and I think it’s doing really well um there are no plans currently uh there was a
Really big grant program from oton to do Native Plant installations and that money has run out so there’s I don’t have any unfortunately future plans in the immediate uh time to yeah do any more installations but um if there’s an opportunity I’d love to help well there’s a question here asking
If you are available for consults in the Charleston area you might be able to yeah shot me an email yeah I’ll put my email in the chat so if anyone wants to to chat about anything we can um it is see uh question is the presentation available for
Download or email we we are recording and um I apologize I didn’t mention that beforehand but but this uh a recording of This will be available if Jen does not object nope I always for forget to hit record like I always introduce whatever and then I’m five minutes into it I’m
Like oh no I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to me but um yes you’re not the only one um oh here’s a here’s a question about what’s the best way to keep a bird cleaner a bird feeder clean not a not exactly a plant question
But a bird question yes so I think when it comes to bird feeding um the best thing to do is get high quality seed so if you get your seed from the grocery store or from Walmart or Lowe’s usually that is the seed’s old it’s been sitting
In a warehouse it’s full of fillers that the birds don’t even eat those little brown round seeds it’s called a red Milo I think and red millet um our birds don’t eat it at all and so when you see bird seeds full of that stuff they’re
Just chucking it out and kicking it out of the way and making a big mess on the ground um so I prefer quity seed um from usually Wild Birds Unlimited or some of those stores they sell one that’s called like No Mess blend and it has no shells
On it and so it seems like it’s more expensive but you’re actually paying less per seed because you’re not paying for the weight of the shell um and so if you get that and only fill it up a little bit at a time and make sure the
Birds are going through it in a a good amount of time that’s one really good way and then also if it rains or if it’s really humid again don’t fill it up too much so the birds are going through it faster so it doesn’t get moldy and gunky
Um and then they also have a type of feeder called a quick clean tube feeder so it’s really nice because tube feeders are pain to clean um you know half time you have to use a screwdriver and trying to get in all the corners and stuff like
That but this quick clean feeder if you hold it there’s like two little buttons on the bottom and the bottom just pops off and so it’s super easy to clean out um and make sure it looks really good and there’s even like nicer versions that have um I think it’s called like
Ago n agon I’m not sure how you pronounce that but it’s an antimicrobial agent in the plastic tubing itself which helps to reduce the mold and Milo and bacteria so keeping them clean um is just frequent changing getting a good seed getting a good feeder and then to
Actually clean it itself um I’m sure you guys probably remember the cisin issue last year with salmonella we had an eruption year of pine CYS skins and they were coming down in big groups and um they were getting sick with salmonella and there’s also like a a housefinch eye
Disease a conjunctivitis type thing that’s very transmittable um especially in places like feeders and bird baths so if you see a sick bird like that I would leave your feeder empty for a couple days and hope that that bird moves on and then clean your feeder with bleach
And water so that’s that’s the best thing to do there’s a bird banding question I think somebody said out of curiosity what does bird bagging mean bird bag bagging oh okay so when you bag the birds um give me one sec I’m sure I have one here uh let’s
See so I don’t have a bird here but I have a bird bag um when we ban birds that we tra them different ways so some of them is like a feeder trap where you put a bird feeder inside and it’s built like a crab trap so they go in get on
The feeder and then when you start coming up to the Trap they don’t realize how to get out so you just go and kind of scoop them up real quick or you put them at put up a big net a Mis net it’s about 30 feet long and about 10t high
And it’s very very fine so the birds are flying along minding their own business and then they fall into the net and it’s kind of like a hammock they just kind of fall into a pocket and then sit there until you come and get them but when you
Get them you put them in um this little pillowcase type thing so you just open it up put the bird in there you close it around your hand pull your hand out and then you pull the string tight this one has a knot in it this one must have just
Gone through the wash there you go and then you wrap it and pull it like that then you have a bagged bird so bagging the bird is what the this means and then if they have been feeding in a maritime forest or someplace of poke weed you will get
Purple blotches all over the bomb of the bag because they’re processing it very quickly and then pooping out the purple good question here’s one it says you mentioned Millet uh do our Birds meet eat white or yellow Millet or no Millet at all I think good question so
Some people don’t like to feed Millet if you have painted buntings that’s their favorite there are the super fancy bird with like it’s like a champagne look but a beer pocket book they love the cheap Millet seed so if you have painted buntings or Indigo Buntings that’s great
Um if you get sparrows in the winter time chipping sparrows white thed sparrows White Crown sparrows those will all come to White Millet um I wouldn’t get a solely white Millet feeder unless you’re specifically feeding painted buntings um but a mix with some Millet
In it is good I always get a little bit of millet in mine and the doves like it too yeah um thoughts on bird houses bird houses are great as long as you get a good one and you mount it correctly some bird houses can almost
Act like a population sink if you have it in a bad spot or it doesn’t have a predator guard on it so you know the chicks get eaten by snakes repeatedly or if you have a cat in your yard or neighbor’s cat and you put up a bird
House and then the cat just takes out the parents and the chicks as they come out so think about your conditions and then put up the right house in the right place yeah well folks it looks like we’re um we’re coming up on 8 o’clock I want to
Be respectful of our presenter’s time and also um of her um her adorable girls uh need for her attention so if you have any about bedtime if you have any additional questions I think Jen has provided her uh email in the in the chat so um I hope you won’t be inundated but
Um I think I think Jen would be uh would be happy to answer specific questions that you might have absolutely okay um thank you so much Jen this is H this was a real treat for me um you know I’m I could be uh president of your fan club you
Know well thank you very much it was great talking to you guys I love talking to groups like this who just appreciate and get all the information I’m uh you know preaching to you guys so thank you for all that you guys do okay thanks so
Much if you need to go we’ll we’ll we’ll say goodbye we’re gonna probably I’m gonna ask our president if he has anything for the group but um but um you’re welcome to stay if you like if not thank you again so much um I’ll be in touch yeah no problem yeah I’m
Probably going to sign off it’s uh toothbrushing and pajama time so I understand hi everybody thank you thanks again all right President Bill anything fory good of the order yeah two things that I need to bring up one is I need to thank uh our plant sale
Committee one more time for their great job um you’re here everyone did really well ly for helping publicize it with Trish one of our committee members they work together I got to thank historic Columbia