We have a lot of strategies to attract the animals and insects we want, and repel the ones we don’t. Here I discuss nuisance wildlife that we might want to control, as well as beneficial kinds.
Having food and shelter for insects and wildlife means that if you garden, you’ll have visitors. With some experience, you’ll know which animals and insects are pests, and which are merely hazards of gardening. You might want to actively welcome them – putting a dish of water out for the squirrels will reduce the number of tomatoes and cucumbers they steal, because your vegetables are an easy source of water on a hot, thirsty day. They’ll go for the water bowl, so put it out sooner rather than later, and the birds will benefit too.
If you have bird feeders and trees at your home –and even if you don’t – you’re likely to have a couple of window crashes per year – and you might not know it.
Architects, builders, and the lighting-use habits of city building owners have, over the years, increased the hazards birds face, and have done little (so far, with some notable exceptions) to fix the reflections and inappropriate lights that confuse birds.
But homeowners can do a lot to help: by being careful where they hang their bird feeder (ask: what will a startled bird fly towards?) and by putting non-reflective tape and decals on windows so that birds realize it’s not a real window of sky to fly through.
Windows that have anti-reflection decals applied
Here’s what happened. Crashes tend to happen in the early morning. On April 15th at around 8:30, I was gazing out my patio door at my beloved house sparrows and some starlings, when what falls from above, but a wee kinglet. It had spread its wings as it landed next to the sill of the door. It had a better fate than if I had been a gull, as many city gulls actually do: stand around and wait for window-crashers to eat!
I swooped in and picked it up with a bander’s grip.
Bander’s grip is when you cover the bird’s back with your non-dominant hand, with its head inserted between two fingers, and only to your second knuckle. The bird is facing your fingertips, not your wrist. It leaves your dominant hand, and the bird’s legs, free to put a band on.
Photographer’s grip is with your dominant hand, and you’re gently pinching the bird’s legs.
So then I brought the little bird inside and made it a convalescence box. I fashioned a napkin “donut” to rest on, as it fell over on its side when I put it in the box. Birds cannot lie on their sides, because just like with some large animals, it’s harder for them to breathe. I let it rest, and after a few minutes it looked less stunned, so I took some photos.
Window-crashing Kinglet in a convalescence boxYou can see the touch of orange in his cap, which means it’s a maleIt flew to my chandelier (after resting)
About half an hour later, it flew out of its box and took a tour of my main floor. I filmed its flight and it seemed quite agile and comfortable, going from indoor perch to indoor perch.
When it got into my bean plants at the patio window, I had the opportunity to pick it up again. As it perched on my finger, I took photos while I carried it outside. It stayed on my finger all the way until I transferred it to a hanging honey locust branch. From there, it flew up to a branch in my tall cedar, and then it flew off.
Golden-crowned Kinglet, post-recovery
Being so close to downtown, I’ve had other migrating birds stop by to enjoy my tall tree and burbling pond. I never expected a visit from this particular bird, but I’m glad it turned out better than it might have.
I was born on Groundhog Day. I therefore became inordinately fond of rodents.
(Even so, my dog used to drag home dead groundhogs, probably killed by the neighbouring farmer or other people’s cars, and the carcasses would putrefy and dry up in the yard. What can I say, dogs love rolling around in smelly wild animal things.)
Despite that gross memory (hey, humans are gross, too), I just. cannot. get. enough. cute. animal. pictures. Even fugly ones are cute in my book. Just like some people and their babies.
And these guys are most definitely cute. They’re marmots. That means they’re fancy mountain groundhogs. They sit on rocks and look wise, like someone you’d ask advice from. They look like they’d be your best bud.
I had a nice hike in the company of a marmot in BC once. And these are BC marmots. In fact, they’re Vancouver Island Marmots. They’re endangered. Habitat became a problem. Predators too.
Luckily a bunch of do-gooders with cushy jobs (Fat, sassy groundhog babies! My friends, behold a cushy job) are out there breeding, and feeding, and releasing, and spying on these little mofos. If we have a few more good years, their population might rebound! They had 26 litters in the wild last year, maybe 75-80 puppies, and another 22 babies were born in the zoos, getting ready to be sprung on a needy world, I mean, ecosystem. There are dens and caverns just begging to be re-occupied. Watch them on YouTube:
All that to say, all I really want to do is to become a marmot shepherd. But I hear it’s a pretty exclusive job, so I want to make sure that job is around by the time I am eligible to do it. That’s why I want groundhog money for my birthday. <–Donate here!
The money is going to the Marmot Recovery Foundation (http://marmots.org/). Read all about these special beasties here, and gaze (gape) at the gorgeous photos. I want us to sponsor as many of these mommas and papas as we can – $120 for each marmot adoption; I’m begging you all to sponsor two pairs!
If you don’t want to chip in on here, I am certainly happy to set up a tip jar just for you. You’ll have to meet me for it in Montreal.
And if you miss the deadline on this fundraiser – which is February 7th – then you can always donate directly to Marmots.org.
Happy Groundhog Day! And thanks for making it a special one 🙂
If you enjoyed this post, there will be more written just like it when I get enough subscribers to join my email list. I like writing with a bit of humour and irreverency from time to time 🙂 and the list will announce other events and things that help readers do good things in the world.
A few weeks ago, these two young raccoons spent the day in the tree overtop of my backyard. And then, a couple of nights ago, close to midnight, I heard a sound out back; another raccoon, of course. A young, healthy one had raided the eggshell supply that I keep to mix with the bird seed (or dig into the garden). He had also pulled the pet laundry folded on the park bench down. He seemed to like rubbing his paws all over the towel, that was fun! Then, he ate some stuff in the garden – leaves, slugs, who knows.
As I started to eat my yogourt, watching him, he fixed his eyes on me in a dim, myopic way, and came up to the patio door to poke his nose into the screen: “Got some for me?” I told him I had a water gun and he better not mess with the screen. Then he picked up and “washed” the spilled eggshells. I turned the patio light off. He quietly retreated back to the park bench; I went to bed.
Now that Clyde and Rufus have raised their kids, we have a new squirrel visitor coming by to beg. This one (pictured) wasn’t begging, she was hanging out. The moment I opened the patio door, she scampered off. A favourite spot for the squirrels, they have scooped away the dirt on the shed roof, which has not helped the herbs there keep their moisture. Some play dead until the rain comes back.
If you have a great tolerance for bad photography, you can see the grackle bathing here in the waterfall of the pond. The rocks are submerged below the surface, so bigger birds have confidence to get themselves wet. The pond is a mainstay for the house sparrows, but I have chickadees – I love hearing their arrival! – as well as grackles and starlings visit, and the occasional robin, cardinal, house finch, and rare downy woodpecker also come by.
Two keys to having wildlife enjoy your garden:
have a source of running water, and
have a “messy” garden, with brush piles and lots of wood for perching and shrubbery for hiding in.
The presence of nature in my immediate back yard gives me and my human guests a great feeling of peace – and of course, occasional excitement.
This is a long-running “lifestyle” blog about the pleasures of living like a farm kid in an urban context. You’ll find a wide range of topics that pertain to food, crafts, energy efficiency, and DIY. There’s a big focus on ecology and wildlife because this has brought me a lot joy – but this is also the greatest potential we have of restoring some balance to nature where we live.
Given that, I’ve turned my attention to providing more content for people to switch traditional lawns over to native landscaping and green driveways and things that will support climate readiness, drought and flood-prevention, and increased habitat for biodiversity. Comments and questions are welcome!
If you’re in the Montreal region, you can also use my “Rewilding” service to landscape your property using native plants, convert to a green driveway, and prevent your windows from killing birds.
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