Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Earlier this spring, we were heartened to see our old friend the mother robin return to her nest tucked above the heater on our front porch. Last year, she hatched three broods throughout the spring and summer, and so we were able to watch the hatchlings grow until they literally overflowed out of the nest. One thing I learned watching the youngsters was that leaving the nest is not really an option—they literally get too big for their house. I was amazed at their rate of growth. These babies probably quadrupled their size (and that’s a conservative estimate) in a little over two weeks. Life moves fast in the wild.
It’s been a wet spring around here, which has complicated my plans for a no-mow May. For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, no-mow May is pledge not to mow the lawn until June. Doing so and letting the dandelions and clover grow provides a food source for bees and other pollinators early in the season before other food sources like bee balm, sunflowers, and milkweed flower. I had hoped to let the lawn go (grow) until at least the middle of May, but the unusually heavy rainfall made mowing a must. Had I waited until even May 15th, I would have had to take a machete to it—so in order to have a pretty yard, we cut early.
This is the rub—trying to find the balance between cultural standards of beautiful lawns and gardens and the welfare of our native flora and fauna. I like having the robin’s nest perched on the heating unit on our front porch. Watching the mom sit motionless for hours warming the eggs and then feeding the voracious fledglings was amazing. Mom’s patience and diligence in caring for her babies and then seeing the youngsters adjust (with Mom’s help) to independence was awesome. But—there was quite a bit of bird poop on and around the heater. In this case, nature got messy. And a little stinky.
I planted bee balm, a bee-friendly flower that grows like a weed and has in fact almost taken over the back of our yard, a few years ago. The fact that the seeds to this plant are annoying little stickers that are like Velcro, attaching themselves to everyone and everything. Yet the bees love it. We get honeybees, bumblebees, mason bees, a couple I haven’t identified yet, and a number of butterflies including monarchs, viceroys, and swallowtails. I’ve also spied a hummingbird or two. This year I also planted milkweed, which I’ve heard acts like an invasive species. Still and all, a little pruning in the fall is worth the bother. And even though there is still a stigma about bees, that they are dangerous pests that should be eradicated, the truth is that unless they’re being threatened, they are harmless and actually pretty amiable creatures.
Although some may think of the pollinators and songbirds as pests and inconveniences, the truth is that they are our neighbors, sharing our natural habitat with us—in fact adapting to our alterations to their environment much more readily than we do to theirs.
And when we are landscaping, raking leaves, trimming the shrubs, or cutting the grass, we are altering—and destroying—habitat. Cleaning the yard for the spring too early can expose some species to predation. Removing a tree can destroy squirrel nests, birds’ nests, and insect habitat. Applying herbicides to the lawn destroys clover and dandelions, major early food sources for pollinators. The runoff from these chemicals can drastically alter stream and lake ecosystems. Excessive fertilizer runoff can cause algae bloom in our waterways, killing fish and other aquatic species.
In Northern Wisconsin, the iconic loon is becoming endangered precisely for these reasons. Dependent on clear water for hunting their food sources, waters clouded by excessive algae growth are resulting in lower loon populations and lighter than normal fledgling weights. The other threat to loons, who nest at the water’s edge, are the huge waves caused by wake boats, watercraft that deliberately create wakes large enough to surf on. We may lose the Wisconsin loon simply because people feel the need to surf on an inland lake or need to have a well-manicured lawn in the Northwoods.
It’s obvious that the people who do these things (assuming they care) have not thought through what they’re doing to the environment. By and large, they probably don’t think that a couple of loon families or some dead fish matter a whole lot, but everything in nature is interdependent and related. Because of widespread mosquito extermination in Northern Wisconsin, the bird and bat populations have declined, which in turn have their own ripple effects upon the environment.
Unfortunately, our culture prioritizes profits and our own aesthetic preferences over the natural order of the world. In our society, closely edged lawns and carefully trimmed hedges take priority over animal habitat and the welfare. Even when given a choice to go green with solar power or an organic fertilizer, many gardeners or lawn pioneers prefer the gas generator over using solar power or using lawn food to composting. Whether it’s arrogance or thoughtlessness behind our disregard to the environment, we need to a closer look at our personal choices and to learn to tolerate a little robin poop on our porch or a few weeds in our lawn.
This in eminently evident in our attitude toward climate change. We’ve been warned for years—decades—about the dangers of greenhouse gases and global warming. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, a cautionary documentary about climate change, is over twenty years old, and—unfortunately—its message is still as pertinent now as it was then. While we’ve made some progress in limiting the causes of climate change, it is not nearly enough. The Unchained Goddess, one of the Bell Telephone educational films popular in the sixties, mentioned the possible future effects of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases on climate change. That was in 1958. And these guys were right. In the past few years, we’ve seen drastic changes in hurricane formation, storm strength, and other climate disruptions.
Change starts at home. We share this planet with millions of other species but respect none as much as we do ourselves. We treat most with disdain or indifference and don’t hesitate to eliminate them if they get in our way. If we continue to treat the birds and the bees as if they are inferior inconsequential creatures, we will be the ones who disappear off the face of the earth. No pollinators mean no crops. No predator songbirds mean rampant mosquito and tick populations and a subsequent rise in diseases like malaria and West Nile Virus. Using chemicals to controls will—and have—resulted in more damage to the environment.
Listen to the birds. Listen to the bees.