Opening the Door (Part 2 of 3)

by Jeff Manker

How do we let birds back into our lives and communities? In my previous article I proposed the idea of rethinking how we landscape our built spaces here in the Bay Area. I imagined GGBA members leading the way by replacing exotic plants in their yards, balconies, and grounds of apartment complexes where they live. This time I want to talk about how to do that.

First, you need permission. If you own your own property, you still might need to talk it over with a partner or your family. If you rent, you may need the property owner’s or an HOA’s permission to change plants even on a balcony and especially in a shared landscaped space.

So, let’s not do this willy-nilly. We need a plan. 

Next, do an inventory. Find out what already exists. Look at your space. Draw a map. Show the trees, shrubs, grasses, vines, etc. Try to identify them to see if they are native. If you are not a plant person, I suggest using a plant identification app. I personally use Seek. It can tell you if the plant is native or not.

Once you know what you have you can determine if plants need replacing. If you have all natives, awesome! Pat yourself on the back, kick back while enjoying your favorite beverage, and enjoy the birds, bugs and butterflies. You are my hero.

I moved to Alameda a little over three years ago and when I did an inventory of my front and back yard, there were zero native plants. Zero! I had come from 28 years on a two-acre property in the Santa Cruz Mountains that had a fifty tree apple orchard, a flower and vegetable garden, and most of the rest was covered in Redwood forest and its associated native plants. I didn’t so much have to nurture native plants as I had to push them back from taking over the orchard.

I had the opposite problem and no real experience in landscaping. Lucky for me, I’ve had some good influences. 

Before I moved to Santa Cruz, I lived and worked in the Bay Area as a teacher and was lucky enough to become involved with a group called “Kids In Creeks”. The person who ran that organization and got me and my students involved was Kathy Kramer. If you don’t know her name, you should. In 2005 Kathy created a different organization called Bringing Back The Natives Garden Tour (BBTNGT).

The mission of BBTNGT is to get residents of the Bay Area to plant their yards with natives. The yearly in-person tour happening in early May welcomes participants into local gardens that have made the transition. The gardens are scattered across the East Bay and are big, small, personal, and professional. They are beautiful, peaceful, and welcoming to birds, bees, and butterflies.

The second important influence comes from University of Delaware Professor of Entomology and writer Doug Tallamy. Years ago Doug had his graduate students count the number of species of invertebrates that utilized different species of plants. The results have helped shape his mission and message to the rest of us. He has published numerous scientific papers to back up the message of his popular books (Bringing Nature Home, Nature’s Best Hope and his latest, How Can I Help?: Saving Nature With Your Yard). His basic finding is something we all should know. 

Native plants have co-evolved over millennia with the other organisms that live in that space and those organisms are dependent on each other.

Butterflies and moths lay their eggs on certain plants. A lot of people know for example that Monarch Butterflies need milkweed plants. But why? When the eggs of monarchs hatch the resulting caterpillars have specialized in eating the leaves of the milkweed. Milkweed sap is toxic to many mammals (cows, horses, goats, sheep, dogs, cats) but monarchs and a few other moths and butterflies have the correct enzymes to safely digest the plant material with no ill effects. 

Most plants produce chemical defenses to prevent being eaten by herbivores, however, some damage can be tolerated if a benefit (pollination) is the trade off. This is the case with many native plant species. It is too costly in terms of lost benefits or energy expenditure to ward off all possible damage.

So, over time many insects or their caterpillars have reached a type of equilibrium with native plants. Oaks in particular host over 250 different species!

Non-native exotic plants, though often beautiful, evolved elsewhere with different insects and produced different toxins to keep herbivores at bay. The insects of our region cannot survive on these plants. Young caterpillars starve to death. This eliminates the moths, butterflies, and birds.

Circling back to my first blog post “Opportunity Knocks”, I mentioned that birds raising young NEED CATERPILLARS! Without the correct plants (natives) there will be fewer and fewer baby birds and fewer and fewer species. There is no getting around this. Evolution takes hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions of years. 

The plant-caterpillar-bird connection is locked in. We can either ignore it and watch bird numbers continue to decline, or we can acknowledge the connection and do something about it. 

Jeff Manker is a member of the GGBA East Bay Conservation Committee, the Youth Advisory Committee and is a Board Member. He taught classroom science for 32 years including a high school ornithology class. He is on the Education Advisory Board for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and  serves on the Board of 100K Trees for Humanity and the Regional Parks Association. Even though it makes him sound really old, he has been chasing birds for 60 years now.