The garden gives back

 

 

For a few years now I have been turning the garden toward the needs of wildlife. It now holds numerous sources of water, a growing retinue of native plants, and a couple of home made birdhouses.  One lonely bird box is attached to my office shed; last year, while I did notice at least one chickadee sizing it up, it remained empty. This year was different. In spring the chickadee came back, sniffed around, and decided it was good. The nesting soon began.

I regret that I didn’t pay very close attention in April and early May, but around the third week of May I was admiring my emerging asters when I thought I heard some wispy little voices emanating from the box. Nonchalantly I poked around the garden, noting the vigorous growth of a two-year old elderberry, the small beetles on the goldenrods, the ants pollinating the cherries and currants. The voices were slight, and I wasn’t entirely sure I heard them at first. But after a few days it was clear the whispering was triggered every time a parent arrived with food.

 

And what a feast it was! I spotted a few spiders and flies, but by far the most common deliveries were caterpillars. Funny enough, I was reading a book by Rick Darke & Doug Tallamy (The Living Landscape, 2014) which claimed that a clutch of Carolina chickadees will consume somewhere between 6000 and 10,000 caterpillars between birth and fledging, “an astounding number, even to those who study bird behavior” (p.  96). I certainly found it astonishing, but as I sat out in my office shed, I saw the comings and goings of the parents were very regular and frequent. First they zipped back and forth to the old choke cherry right nearby. After a week or so they were venturing further afield, to the sugar maple in our front yard, then later to the nearby Manitoba maples and a neighbour’s big paper birch. Along the way I timed them a few times; at the end of May they were in and out, arriving back roughly every minute and a half; in early June I counted 11 arrivals in 12 minutes. And they were at it pretty much from dawn to dusk, the best part of 16 hours.

The arithmetic adds up: even lowballing at 30 caterpillars an hour x 15 hours x 15 days = 6750 at a minimum, while 40 caterpillars and 18 days gives = 10,800 caterpillars. An incredible number of insects to be plucked from the leaves of a handful of native trees, just for one clutch! I should note that at no time did I see them show any interest in the many Norway maples that adorn our streetscape; the chickadees simply flew past them. These non-native (and quite invasive) trees make up perhaps half the trees in our urban neighbourhood, but they support almost no wildlife, as our local insects have not adapted to overcome their chemical defences. Yet somehow the neighbourhood still supports families of chickadees, cardinals, crows, robins, mourning doves, numerous sparrows and starlings, goldfinches, and (way up high) the chittering tree swallows.

But the chickadees, my guests, had a special place this year. At times they seemed to not mind me hanging around, and I was able to get a few decent photos. But posing was not their preference; soon they learned how to fly directly into the hole, and I had little chance to get a shot. As the chicks got closer to fledging, the parents became less tolerant; they sat on the branches or wires nearby, shouting at me to move along and stubbornly waiting to approach the nest. (For the record, a mouthful of bug does little to dull the harsh ghee-ghee of an annoyed chickadee.) So I was relegated to the shed, now a blind from which I could watch their travels. My favourite part of this entire experience was hearing the excited voices each time a parent arrived. I could readily see a clutch of greedy mouths shouting “Me me me me me me me” – until the parent emerged and flew off again. The joy this brings, even now in memory, was a real gift from my garden this year. 

Social researchers have studied the impact of birds on people and discovered the obvious: birds make people happy. People who live close to birds feel subjectively “wealthier” to the tune of thousands of dollars a year: one study found “that seeing 10 per cent more bird species generates satisfaction on par with a comparable increase in income.” Well I felt rather rich this spring, but my satisfaction came not from the diversity of species, or even the number of birds, in my garden. It came from an actual relationship I grew into with the birds. They were my guests; I built a small home for them, and I cultivate plants that help them to feed their babies. They are also my wards; I protect them from my cats (who are not allowed outside in fledging season) and my dogs (I give a warning before letting them out). They are family; teaching, sharing stories, setting an example. They are community, along with the trees they rest in, the caterpillars they eat, the leaves and stems and flowers that provide other homes for other guests, who together ensure the community thrives and celebrates like only life can.

And life, in turn, has its turns. On June 9, after roughly 3 weeks (and roughly 10,000 caterpillars), I noticed the parents were barely able to enter the nest to deliver the food. The next morning I ventured out around 7 am, as usual, to find the nest box vacant. The whole yard suddenly seemed empty, and while a little sad, I was filled with satisfaction. The young chickadees, I presume, had flown, and maybe it was they who were testing their songs from the trees in the subsequent days. Meanwhile my sage had flowered, the leafcutter bees had begun their work, and a yellow swallowtail fluttered by to remind me there was much more summer to come.