Wild Ones LogoHabitat Gardening
in Central New York
    Issue #19 - November 5, 2009
In This Issue
Stand and stare
Stewardship in action
Birdwatchers needed
My FeederWatch experiences
More on fall leaves and "Winterize your lawn!"
The monarch's own GPS!
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Take time to
"stand and stare"

leaf
What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies
(1871 - 1940),
a Welsh poet
and writer

Greetings!

Our November meeting is the time for our annual Roundtable to round out your Thanksgiving weekend.

This is your opportunity to ask any question about habitat gardening you might have. We have a variety of experienced habitat gardeners who can provide tips, but we also can learn from beginners. Everyone is welcome to chime in with their own experiences.

Feel free to bring a few of your favorite books or other resources you've found to be informational and/or inspirational. We'd love to hear about them.

Finally, this more informal meeting is a great opportunity to get to know each other better!

WHEN: Sunday November 29 at 2:00 pm
WHERE: The Special Activity Room of the Le Moyne College Library (Directions...)

Janet Allen,
President, Habitat Gardening in Central New York
Alice Aylesworth
Stewardship in action
by John Allen
 
We want to acknowledge one of our HGCNY members, Alice Aylesworth, who has taken on a monumental task. She has been planning, organizing, and implementing a project of reducing the number of invasive species and increasing the number of native plants on the property of the May Memorial UU Society on E. Genesee Street--and, in the process, eliminating some lawn. This task officially began in January, but she was carefully planning for quite a while before that.
 
As soon as it was possible to walk around the grounds, which extend from the parking lot east of the building all the way to Dewitt Rd. to the west, Alice organized an audit of native and invasive species. Included among the latter were Japanese knotweed, Japanese barberry, multiflora rose, burning bush, Japanese honeysuckle, and garlic mustard. Alice organized various actions to reduce the number of invasive non-natives. One of the Sunday school classes pulled garlic mustard (and made pesto with it), and one member began a vigorous campaign to eliminate the Japanese knotweed near E. Genesee Street.
 
Alice began working with the appropriate congregational committees to eliminate other non-natives. Some people were enamored with the burning bush plants. Others were convinced that Japanese barberry could never spread anywhere. But with persistence, Alice made progress. After a summer worship service that focused on the importance of native plants for preserving biodiversity, the resistance to removing these invasive plants dissolved.
 
Alice has found several areas to plant with natives instead of lawn and has introduced about twenty species of native plants that are not found elsewhere on the property. With the help of Sunday school classes, she planted milkweed (Asclepias incarnata and A. tuberosa) and nectar plants to create a certified Monarch Waystation.
 
This project, part of the congregation's Green Sanctuary certification efforts, will be a model for others, thanks to the initiative and hard work of Alice Aylesworth!
Bird watchers needed to help scientists discover changes in bird populations
 
From Project Feederwatch:
What happens in the backyard should not stay in the backyard--at least when it comes to bird feeders. By sharing information about which birds visit their feeders between November and April, backyard bird watchers can help scientists track changes in bird numbers and movements from year to year, through Project FeederWatch, a citizen-science program from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada.

Project FeederWatch begins on November 14 and runs through early April. Taking part is easy. Anyone can count the numbers and kinds of birds at their feeders and enter their information on the FeederWatch website.

"To get the most complete picture of bird movements, we always need new sets of eyes to tell us what species are showing up at backyard feeders," says David Bonter, leader of Project FeederWatch. "Participants always tell us how much fun it is and how good it feels to contribute to our understanding of birds by submitting their sightings." 

Project FeederWatch is for people of all ages and skill levels. To learn more and to sign up, visit www.feederwatch.org or call the Cornell Lab toll-free at (866) 982-2473. In return for the $15 fee ($12 for Cornell Lab members) participants receive the FeederWatcher's Handbook, an identification poster of the most common feeder birds, a calendar, complete instructions, and Winter Bird Highlights, an annual summary of FeederWatch findings.

Happy FeederWatching this winter!
My FeederWatcher experience
 
nuthatchesProject FeederWatch is my favorite citizen science project, but when I first participated, I could identify only a few birds. Eventually, though, I became a "Featured FeederWatcher"! I learned "on the job" by getting a few good bird ID books and spending some time puzzling over particular birds. My favorite books are Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region, Stokes Field Guide to Warblers, and Kenn Kaufman's Birds of North America.

I found that one effective way to figure out a bird's identity is to grab the camera and take a quick photo. If you manage to catch a good image, you can thumb through the bird ID books at your leisure - or even email it to a more knowledgeable friend. And now an additional aid is available: All About Birds, an online guide to birds.

You'll find that birds that may puzzle you at first (for example, all those LBJs - "little brown jobs"), soon become so distinct that you wonder how you could ever have confused them. Be patient. You'll get there!

Besides a fascinating new winter hobby, you'll be rewarded by knowing you're playing an important role in conserving birds by collecting the data scientists need to learn about the changing bird populations.

Children in your life?

This is also a good project for children. Your own children can help you watch birds (they usually have better eyes than us old folk) and actually do science, not just learn facts from a book. There's even a free Homeschooler's Guide to Project FeederWatch. And it's perfect for scouts or other groups, too. A discount is available.
More on fall leavesLeaf sign

Forget about raking, but make your mower do double duty as a leaf shredder and vacuum.
Read more on the Organic Gardening website...
 
But whatever you do, don't burn them! It may be a pleasant fragrance or just nostalgia for some, but the health consequences are too big to ignore -  particulate matter and hydrocarbons, which contain a number of toxic, irritant, and carcinogenic (cancer-causing) compounds. Leaf smoke also contains carbon monoxide. Read more...

Good news! The smaller your lawn, the less you need to worry about leaves. Leaves are a natural mulch for your planting beds, whereas lawns suffer from a carpet of leaves.

And a story just for fun:

"Winterize your lawn," the big sign outside the garden store commanded. I've fed it, watered it, mowed it, raked it and watched a lot of it die anyway. Now I'm supposed to winterize it? I hope it's too late. Grass lawns have to be the stupidest thing we've come up with outside of thong swimsuits! We constantly battle dandelions, Queen Anne's lace, thistle, violets, chicory and clover that thrive naturally, so we can grow grass that must be nursed through an annual four-step chemical dependency.

Imagine the conversation The Creator might have with St. Francis about this. (Read the rest of the story...)
Monarchs have their own built-in GPS! 
 
Monarch on coneflowerScientists have discovered that Monarch butterflies use a 24-hour "clock" to help them navigate to Mexico.

The insects navigate according to the position of the sun, adjusting their calculations as it appears to move across the sky.

Surprisingly, this "clock" appears to be located in the antennae rather than the brain.

A research team from the University of Massachusetts Medical School is also interested in studying the role of the antennae in butterfly social reactions since monarchs are extremely gregarious when they migrate.

From the BBC News - Read more...