Bringing Nature Home

Since I am a public speaker covering backyard habitats, it is very important that I keep up on my reading about environmental topics. There are few books which have influenced my husband and me as much as Douglas W. Tallamy's "Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants."
This book is my bible now and I often mention it during my presentations. I can attest that we detect more and more insects in our yard, the more native plants we are planting.
Professor Tallamy discovered that our native insects cannot digest alien plants. Alien plants are any plants which were, accidentally or on purpose, introduced into the United States. These "aliens" often bring with them alien insects (e.g. the marmorated stinkbug as a recent example). Alien plants do not provide any host plants for native insects, and thus are not part of the natural food chain.
A large part of the book focuses on plants you should plant to create a healthy habitat. The back of the book lists the plants by geographical area.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in gardening.

Bird Feeding in Winter

This fall I finally decided to hang up a log that we purchased at a birding store a while ago. It has several cut-out holes to stash in food for woodpeckers and chickadees. I put some extra crunchy peanut butter in the holes and didn't have to wait long for takers. Downy and hairy woodpeckers love it and I can't refill it fast enough for them. It seems to be even more popular than the suet cake we put out.

Since winter has arrived here in western Pennsylvania with freezing temperatures and snow flurries it is particularly important to provide birds with the fuel they need to survive in this weather. Peanut butter or suet are just the ticket because of their nutritious content. You can also place nuts in the holes, but only if it isn't windy. Now sit back and enjoy the show from the warmth of your house.