[Guest Post by Ursula Vernon] A few days ago, not long after Christmas, I was standing in my upstairs bedroom, newly showered, digging through my underwear drawer. It had snowed heavily the day before–a rarity down here in North Carolina–and the whole world was glittering white snow and black trunks. I was staring vaguely out [...]
Bread is NOT Bird Food
Earlier this week I was researching some new bird gardening strategies and I was flipping through my stacks of bird gardening books and I noticed that the majority of these books spend most of their space talking about bird feeders and bird feeding “projects.” While I am a huge proponent of any method that instills [...]
Is Sugar Bad for Hummingbirds?
We’ve talked about hummingbird feeders before in discussing how long to leave your feeders up during the fall migration, but this new question came from Stacey through the new Ask Carole feature at Ecosystem Gardening: Carole, is it really okay to feed hummingbirds sugar water? I avoid refined sugar like the plague, so I’m wondering [...]
Chickadees in the Wildlife Garden
It makes me so happy to walk through my garden right now, because the Carolina Chickadees have hatched. I could sit by this nest box for hours listening to the happy cheeping sounds coming from hungry baby Chickadees inside the box. Mom and Dad work diligently from dawn to dusk on a constant mission to [...]
Bluebirds in the Wildlife Garden
I was fortunate to attend a Bluebird workshop over the weekend at Mount Cuba Center in Hockessin, DE led by my friend Katharine Patterson. I’ll be returning to talk about the wonderful work Mount Cuba Center is doing in a later post, because the natural lands manager, Jim Subach, is an incredibly fascinating guy with [...]
American Robins in Your Wildlife Garden
I’ve been watching the Robins pecking through last winters leaves in their search for earthworms, snails, grubs and insects. We tend to think of sightings of American Robins as signs of spring, but Robins are in fact year-round residents in most of the lower 48 US states. How Come I Don’t See any Robins in [...]
Hummingbirds Return
My friend Karyl at Native Plant Wildlife Gardeners is already seeing Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in her Georgia garden. Lucky her! But no matter where you live in the country, the time is soon approaching when you’ll see the return of these birds, too. How to Know When to Expect Hummingbirds in your Wildlife Garden There’s a [...]
Nest Watch in Your Ecosystem Garden
Bird nest monitoring has become a very important tool in the arsenal for biologists and ornithologists who study bird populations. And the good news is that you can help by joining Nest Watch, a citizen science project by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. NestWatch welcomes data for all North American birds. Participants submit data about which [...]
Who’s in Your Wildlife Garden? Learning to ID Birds by Song
Old Sam Peabody, teakettles, Beefeater, party, and beer. What do these have to do with your wildlife garden? Your Ecosystem Garden will be a magnet for birds, and all of these phrases can be associated with a specific song. Learning to identify your avian friends by their song is a wonderful way to experience the [...]
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