Saw Mill River Audubon

The Eagle’s Lesson

SMRA January 20, 2022

I spotted six Bald Eagles during a walk in Croton Point Park last week: Two riding ice floes out in the Hudson River, three adults scattered around the park, and a perched immature that—for a few exciting moments—I thought might even be a rare Golden Eagle.

Six Bald Eagles in a single morning at that park is a lot, but not a lot. In this season, it’s a rare visit that doesn’t turn up at least one or two. (My wife and I once counted 17 in a single day!)

Bald eagle in flight at George’s Island. Photo: Steve Rappaport

In fact, Bald Eagles have become so much part of our regular lives around here—and nearly everywhere in the North America where there’s plenty of water and fish nearby—that we almost expect to see them. Despite their grandeur, we may even begin to take them for granted.

It wasn’t always this way. In fact, twenty years ago Bald Eagles were a rare sight, and not that much further back they were on the brink of disappearing entirely. Even though the species is thriving now, I think we need to keep the story of the eagle’s brush with extinction vivid in our minds. As we head into an increasingly perilous future for our wildlife and ourselves alike, it still has important things to teach us.

Bald eagle nestlings. Photo: NY Department of Environmental Conservation.

Oddly for a bird chosen (in 1782) as the national symbol, the Bald Eagle was viewed with suspicion, if not loathing, by European colonists as soon as they arrived on the continent. (Many Native American tribes, on the other hand, revered the bird. Except for a small number of eagles killed for their feathers, which were used in ceremonies, the birds and their nesting sites were strictly protected.)

Despite eating mainly fish, eagles—along with wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, Golden Eagles, and a variety of smaller predators—were slaughtered for killing livestock. Not that an accurate understanding of the bird’s diet protected it: In coastal communities it was wrongly blamed for harming commercial and sport fisheries, and slaughtered for that, too.

A group of seven Fort Seward soldiers holding up bald eagle carcasses. An estimated 128,000 eagles were killed between 1917 and 1953 for a bounty of fifty cents to two dollars, circa 1920. Source: https://www.sheldonmuseum.org/vignette/chilkat-bald-eagle-preserve/

The Bald Eagle’s reputation was so bad that Alaska actually paid a bounty for every eagle carcass turned in between 1917 and 1959. Why did state officials finally rescind the reward? Not because of environmental enlightenment, but because Alaska was about to become the 49^th state. Someone realized that paying residents to kill the symbol of the nation you were about to join wasn’t a good look.

Bald eagles counted on Christmas Bird Counts from 1900 to 2000. Source and population activity: https://journeynorth.org/tm/eagle/Population.html

As if this sort of persecution wasn’t enough, a slew of other factors also helped send the Bald Eagle hurtling towards extinction. One was habitat destruction. It’s hard to imagine now, but much of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and other regions were virtually clear-cut by the early 19^th century, as native woodlands were converted to farmland. Bald Eagles, deprived of their nesting grounds, were among the many species driven away by this deforestation. (Even deer were rare in the Northeast in those days!)

Then there was the rise of industrialization throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and the water pollution that progress inevitably brings. Every new mill and factory, every mile of waterside railroad track laid, led to increasingly tainted lakes and rivers. Over the course of decades, that meant fewer fish, less food, and ever-declining eagle populations.

And, of course, there was the mushrooming human population’s insatiable need for food, including seafood. Salmon and trout in the rivers, Atlantic Menhaden and many other species in coastal waters—as these fisheries declined, then crashed by the early 20^th century, the Bald Eagle was left without the prey it had evolved over eons to hunt.

All of these factors were dire enough on their own. But what truly sent the Bald Eagle (and such other topline predators as Golden Eagles, Ospreys, and Brown Pelicans) to the precipice were pesticides, especially the notorious DDT.

DDT’s story is a frighteningly familiar one, but it bears retelling. Like other pesticides, it wasn’t meant to harm birds, merely to help keep crops “healthy.” What this supposed “do no harm” approach resolutely ignored (despite urgent warnings from Rachel Carson and other early environmentalists) was one simple fact: DDT and other pesticides didn’t stay where you sprayed them, or affect only the species you meant to kill.

The message finally got through when Carson’s groundbreaking book Silent Spring was published in 1962. At last the public understood that DDT sprayed on fields ended up in soil, lakes, rivers, and—most devastatingly of all—in animals, where it remained and accumulated. Every time a Bald Eagle ate a fish, it would get walloped by a far larger amount of DDT than even the pesticide’s creators had ever imagined.

Eggs with weak shells, resulting from biological magnification and the use of DDT as a pesticide. Source and more info: https://www.biologycorner.com/2020/03/25/biological-magnification/

The cumulative impact of DDT poisoning on Bald Eagles was devastating. Along with sickening the eagles, it interfered with the birds’ ability to process calcium, causing the females to lay eggs with thin shells. Eagles following the age-old practice of sitting on their eggs would rise to find only a crushed mess remaining.

The most efficient way to destroy a species is to prevent it from breeding successfully. Even long-lived birds like eagles, which can survive for 20 years in the wild, aren’t fertile forever. Once you’ve knocked out an entire generation’s ability to raise its young, where is the next generation going to come from?

And that’s what nearly happened because of DDT and other factors. By 1963, there were a mere 417 nesting pairs of Bald Eagles across the entire lower 48 states. Like such extinct species as the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet, the eagle and many other species nearly vanished without anyone noticing until too late.

The Bald Eagle population estimate for the Lower 48 states has risen fourfold since 2009, thanks to population recovery and new eBird estimation methods. Photo by Randy Walker/Macaulay Library, graphic by Jillian Ditner. More here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/new-bald-eagle-population-estimate-usfws/

Thanks to Rachel Carson and a burgeoning environmentalist movement, that didn’t happen this time. Once DDT’s effects on eagles, pelicans, and other species became common knowledge, the public’s outcry was loud and immediate. In the face of a cascade of bad publicity, the government responded forcefully. DDT was banned across the U.S. in 1972, and in 1973 the Bald Eagle was one of the first birds placed on the strong, new Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The eagle’s response to this reprieve was slow at first, but over the years its population rebound has accelerated to resemble a freight train. As of 2020, scientists put the overall eagle population in the Lower 48 at an astonishing 316,700 birds, including more than 71,000 nesting pairs. (Saying that you spotted six eagles on a morning’s walk sounds a little less impressive when you realize that you’ve seen just .000019% of the bird’s population.)

Bald Eagle nest with young, New York state. Photo: www.stevesachsphotography.com

All in all, the Bald Eagle represents one of the greatest environmental success stories of the 20^th century. And its success, along with that of pelicans, Ospreys, and other DDT-afflicted birds, is worth celebrating. It proves that through smarts, dedication, hard work, and raised voices, we humans can make a positive difference in the world around us…and even reverse the grievous mistakes we make along the way.

But that’s just part of the eagle’s lesson. Its story also teaches us that, in a world beset by environmental threats large and small, we’re going to need all our smarts and dedication, every bit of hard work we can spare, and ever-louder voices. That’s the only way we’re going to keep the next Bald Eagle—or even this one—thriving through the rest of this century and beyond.

by Joseph Wallace

PS to learn more about Bald Eagles and other raptors in the Hudson Valley, join in on Teatown’s EagleFest coming up the first weekend in February! EagleFest includes both online and outside events: www.teatown.org/events/eaglefest/

Birding/ SMRA

A Fascination of Sparrows

SMRA December 21, 2021

A what of what?

I can just hear your snorts of disbelief: How can I possibly associate the word “fascination” with those drab little representatives of the bird world? And I get it: Given the chance to convince a skeptic of the joys of birding, would I choose to introduce them to a sparrow instead of a majestic Bald Eagle, a gorgeous white Great Egret, a gaudy Baltimore Oriole, or even a familiar but colorful Blue Jay?

No, I probably wouldn’t. And for many, many years after I first started paying attention to birds, I also shrugged sparrows off as merely species to glance at before moving on to something more interesting.

These days, though? When I’m with someone else who wants to learn more about the natural world, it isn’t long before I start describing why I think sparrows are fascinating. That, in fact, they’re some of our coolest birds.

How can that be? Here are a few ways:

Lark Sparrow. From www.allaboutbirds.org.

THEIR BEAUTY IS SUBTLE

Beauty?! I may have lost you already. We all tend to think of sparrows as merely “little brown jobs,” and it’s undeniable that their color palette is limited.

But if every bird were as gaudy as a Peacock or a Scarlet Tanager, we’d soon expect nothing less. (Not every gorgeous flower has to be a sunflower or prize rose.) The truth is that many sparrows are strikingly marked. For example: In breeding season, the familiar White-throated Sparrow has its bright white throat, lemon-yellow spots between its beak and its eyes, a black-and-white striped head, and rufous wings. The Lark Sparrow has a harlequin pattern of red, white, and black on its head and face. And the Fox Sparrow is a mass of reddish-brown—a colorful bird by any standard.

Many other sparrows are far from plain, and even the less vivid species often boast complex patterns of spots and streaks. They’re always worth a closer look.

THEY’RE EVERYWHERE

Even a casual nature lover knows that sparrows are always around us: In these parts, Song Sparrows sing in our yards all year long, White-throats hop among the winter weeds, and other species make more occasional appearances. (By the way, the ubiquitous House Sparrows that mob our feeders, take over nests meant for other birds, and generally make a nuisance of themselves aren’t even closely related to our sparrows. They’re destructive pests introduced from the Old World, so don’t tar our sparrows with the House Sparrow brush.)

Though we know that native sparrows are a permanent fixture of our backyards, we don’t always realize that they’re in everyone’s backyard in this hemisphere. Sparrows occupy nearly every ecosystem from above tree line on the highest mountains (American Tree Sparrows) to the edge of the sea (Seaside Sparrows, naturally), and from the Arctic tundra of northern Alaska (Golden-crowned Sparrows) to the island of Tierra del Fuego south of continental South America (Rufous-collared Sparrow). These little birds are astonishingly adaptable, setting up camp anywhere there’s food to be found.

Song sparrow. From www.allaboutbirds.org.
Listen to Song sparrows here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Song_Sparrow/sounds

THEY’RE COMPLICATED

Did you know that every Song Sparrow on earth sings a different song? It’s true, and it’s very, very unusual in the bird world. Most birds follow a relatively simple process as they learn to sing: They study their parents’ songs in the weeks after hatching, just as they model other behaviors that will soon allow them to go off on their own.

Young Song Sparrows, however, are tutored not only by their parents but by neighboring birds, and they don’t just learn when they’re young, but for a whole year or two. That means that while every individual sings a mix of notes, trills, and buzzes, each one develops its own unique mix. As if that isn’t creative enough, one bird might sing 20 different songs and invent up to 1000 variations on its basic theme.

No one has yet figured out why Song Sparrows do this while other birds don’t. I think that maybe they just enjoy it.

The elusive LeConte’s Sparrow, December 2, 2021, Croton Point Park. Photo: Charlie Roberto

THEY CHOOSE US

As long as we don’t disturb them, one thing connects a Great Blue Heron stalking in the shallows, a Red-tailed Hawk perched regally on a branch, and an American Robin singing in a treetop: They don’t pay any attention to us. Meanwhile, other, shyer species may take a single glance at us and fly off or hide in dense underbrush.

But there are certain sparrows that don’t follow this either/or rule. Instead, they do both: One moment they may decide to stay hidden among long grasses or underbrush, remaining invisible for hours to every eager birder searching for them. And then, with no warning at all, they’ll pop up, casual and unafraid, to give a chosen onlooker a clear view.

LeConte’s Sparrow paparazzi on Croton Point grasslands, December 8, 2021. Photo: Anne Swaim.

These little sparrows have attracted birders from near and far, many of whom have spent fruitless hours on end (days, even) searching for them. If you’re very lucky, though, a LeConte’s will suddenly pop into view, glowing orange in the sun, watching you with as much interest as you’re watching it. (“Why do you care about me so much?”) After a little while, it’ll disappear back into the grasses again…and though you’ll know it’s still there, you won’t catch another glimpse of it.

Perhaps it’s because I was one of the lucky pursuers (average LeConte Search Time for my two sightings: three minutes), but I think any bird that decides when it wants to be seen and when it doesn’t is worthy of our admiration and curiosity.

So, have I convinced all the skeptics out there yet?

Maybe not, but in writing this essay I think I convinced myself. I still love the show-off birds, but for that unbeatable combination of subtlety, adaptability, creativity, and agency, I’ll take sparrows.

by Joseph Wallace

Birding/ SMRA

How to Hunt: A Hawk’s Eye View

SMRA November 8, 2021

The first thing I noticed was the hawk, a small Red-tail perched on the back of a bench in Croton Point Park. It’s so unusual to spot one close-up at eye level that I stopped for a closer look.

The second thing I noticed was that the bird was paying no attention to me. Instead, it was twisting its head around to peer up into a leafy oak nearby. As I watched it flew up into the tree and began to clamber around in the branches, awkwardly flapping its wings for balance, looking back and forth with its piercing dark eyes.

Red-tailed Hawk. Croton Point Park. Photo: Bonnie Coe.

It took me a minute to figure out what the hawk was doing: It was hunting a young squirrel. For the next fifteen minutes, and in complete silence, the two of them played a deadly game of hide and seek, the squirrel trying to keep branches or the trunk between them, the hawk lumbering around after it.

The hunt was still underway when I had to leave, so I’ll never know who prevailed. Having watched the silent contest, though, I wanted to learn more. How many different hunting techniques do birds of prey employ?

The short answer: A lot. It turns out that there are nearly as many hunting strategies as there are raptors, and some of them are pretty spectacular.

Here are a few:

Red-tailed Hawk in flight. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id

Eyes in the Sky

When we see a hawk soaring in circles high overhead, we can easily imagine that it is searching for its next meal. In reality, though, hawks most often use this kind of soaring to get from place to place, stake out and defend territory, and court their mates.

Some hawks—mostly bigger, open-country species—do hunt while soaring high above. Red-tails, for example, feed on animals as large as rabbits, pheasants, and full-grown snakes, prey that is easily spotted from far above and that can be followed as the bird dives towards it. But most raptors (and often Red-tails themselves) rely on other approaches.

Northern Harrier hunting a grassland. Photo: Gary Zeng/Audubon Photography Awards

Close Inspection

While high soaring gets most of the attention, many hawks instead cruise low over the ground, sometimes just a few feet above a meadow or hilltop. Northern Harriers can sometimes be seen doing this at Croton Point as they hunt for the rodents and other small mammals they eat.

The disadvantage of this technique, of course, is that the prey animal is likely to spot the hawk sooner at close range. However, this is also an advantage for the hawk: Many small creatures’ only defense is to freeze in place, but that’s not so easy when a predator approaches within a few feet. A startled small bird or animal is likely to try to flee, calling attention to itself. Having flushed its prey, the hawk won’t have much distance to cover to gain its prize.

Sharp-shinned Hawk with sparrow. Photo: Rick Price/TrekNature

No Escape

One snowy morning a few years ago, I witnessed a breathtaking feat of hunting skill just outside my front door. I noticed that the birds in and around my feeder were completely still, a sure sign that there was a raptor nearby. Sure enough, a moment later a Sharp-shinned Hawk came winging in and perched on the low, snow-covered hedge that bordered the walk.

As I watched, the little hawk stuck its head down through the crust of snow to survey the branches below. Then it plunged downward, disappearing completely.

I held my breath. A moment later the Sharp-shin re-emerged at least ten feet away from where it had disappeared, shedding snow and clutching a sparrow in its talons. Somehow it had maneuvered at high speed through the tangled branches to grab its prey, which it now took to a higher branch and began to eat.

That’s the thing about the Sharp-shin and its larger relatives, including the Cooper’s Hawk and Northern Goshawk in North America: They’re astonishingly agile, designed to chase and capture birds through the forest canopy. The chase and capture I witnessed was just part of a day’s work for a Sharp-shin.

Merlin (L) and Peregrine (R)

Pure Power

Since they show up in the same places and hunt similar prey, most of us think that falcons and hawks must be closely related. But it turns out they’re not: While both groups belong to the class Aves (as do all birds), they split off just one classification level further down: Hawks to the order Accipitriformes, falcons the order Falconiformes. (Cats and seals, for example, are much more closely related to each other than are hawks and falcons.)

A close look reveals that the two groups of raptors also rely on very different hunting techniques. Unlike most hawks, falcons like the Peregrine and Merlin use their nearly unbelievable speed and great strength to pursue and catch the birds they target.

Peregrine pursuing a Rock Pigeon. See a video of this, via BBC, here: https://youtu.be/i6HkIywJuxI

I’ve witnessed a falcon pursuit, and it was a stunning sight. My wife and I were standing on a balcony overlooking New York City’s East River as a Peregrine took off from a windowsill high above us. As we watched, the bird stooped on a flock of pigeons flying on the other side of the river, folding its wings close to its body and allowing gravity, wind, and its own aerodynamic shape to increase its speed.

At its fastest, the Peregrine we watched may have reached 150 miles per hour—or even more—before slamming into the fleeing pigeons like a missile. Peregrines in mid-stoop have been known to exceed 200 mph, making them by far the fastest animal on earth, with the impact of their strike usually killing their target at once.

Red-shouldered Hawk watching from a perch. From https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-shouldered_Hawk/id

Sit and Wait

This may not be as spectacular a hunting technique as the Peregrine’s stoop and strike, but it’s certainly efficient. A hawk (such as Red-tailed or its close cousin, the Red-shouldered Hawk) will perch on a well-situated high branch with a clear view of an adjacent field or meadow. Then it will become part of the scenery, sitting still while gazing down with its sharp eyes until nearby squirrels, rabbits, or pheasants have simply forgotten it’s there.

Once a likely meal has wandered into view, the hawk will simply plunge from the tree, grab its unwary prey, and return to the branch to feed.

Crane Hawk. https://ebird.org/species/crahaw

Clambering

Have you noticed yet that none of the hunting strategies I’ve described so far match the one that led to this article: The Red-tailed Hawk hunting the squirrel through the branches of a leafy tree? That’s because most hawks never hunt this way.

In fact, I’ve found just a couple of species that regularly climb around trees in search of prey. One of them is the Crane Hawk, which is native from Mexico to Central and South America.

But there’s a crucial difference: Unlike Red-tails, Crane Hawks are ideally suited to capture their chosen prey, the reptiles and small birds and mammals that live in the trees where they hunt. They have unusually long legs, perfectly designed for reaching into and exploring knotholes, old woodpecker nest holes, and crevices. Remarkably, their legs are also double-jointed, bending both forward and back so the bird can reach every corner of their prey’s hiding place.

The Red-tail I watched, on the other hand, had none of these advantages. My guess is that it was a young hawk, and the next time it was hungry it did what its size, shape, and heritage demanded: It soared across the sky…or sat on an exposed branch and waited for its next meal to approach.

entomology_mumbo_jumbo_by_killskerry-d4cg7a2

Backyard Habitats/ SMRA

Tiny Creatures, Epic Journeys

SMRA October 13, 2021

On a recent visit to the South Carolina coast, my wife and I were walking through a grassy field on the path to our favorite beach. Before we even reached the sand, though, we saw something unexpected: Butterflies. Clouds of butterflies in, on, and around the flowering bushes behind the dunes.

A few were Monarchs in the midst of their annual migration from the northeastern U.S. to their threatened wintering grounds in Mexico. But nearly all were two other species: the orange-and-black Gulf Fritillary and the bright (almost lemony) yellow Cloudless Sulphur.

I soon learned that, like the Monarch, both of these butterflies migrate—though Florida, not of Mexico, is their destination. Seeing these three beautiful travelers awoke my imagination. I started to ask questions I’d barely ever thought about before.

Monarch Butterfly. www.butterfly-conservation.org

For example: How many other migratory butterflies are out there? How many other insects? Most of all, how much migration is going on without our even noticing?

The answer to all these questions is: Plenty. The truth is that we’re absolutely surrounded by tiny creatures who migrate, and some of them are undertaking annual journeys of astonishing length.

Painted Lady butterfly

One of the most spectacular migrations belongs to the Painted Lady, the familiar species whose caterpillars are sold in kits, allowing people to “grow” and release their own butterflies. In the wild, Painted Ladies—which live on every continent except Antarctica and South America—are intrepid travelers.

From the species’ European breeding grounds (sometimes as far north as the Arctic Circle), for example, the butterflies head south on a breathtaking route across the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara Desert and tropical Africa. This 9,000-mile roundtrip can involve six successive generations of butterflies, a kind of relay race where each generation somehow knows the leg it must travel before it breeds and passes the baton to the next.

Such a long, complex, and perilous journey would seem like an enormous hurdle to the species’ survival. Yet the Painted Lady is abundant over much of its range. Researchers in Israel, for example, estimated that one billion Ladies migrated across the country in just a couple of weeks in March 2019. (In certain spots, observers counted 25,000 or more butterflies passing by every hour!)

No one seems to know exactly how many different butterfly species migrate, though scientists have already identified hundreds of migratory species across the globe. They are joined by many beetles, grasshoppers, and other insects, some of which simply don’t seem big enough to take such long journeys.

Large Milkweed Bug

Take the Large Milkweed Bug, for example, which at about half an inch in length isn’t actually very large. Like the Monarch, it eats only milkweed. Since milkweed plants die back during northern winters, the cold-weather populations of Milkweed Bugs head to the southern U.S. and Mexico, where the plants thrive all year.

The insects that accrue the most impressive number of frequent-flyer miles, however, are the dragonflies. I was aware of dragonfly migration even as a child, when our yard in Cape Cod would be invaded late every August by large green-and-blue dragonflies. They were Green Darners, and for a few days they seemed to be everywhere. And then, in a flash, they were gone, heading south with the birds and Monarch Butterflies.

Wandering Glider (Globe Skimmer)

Another dragonfly makes perhaps the most epic journey of all insects: Pantala flavescens, found on every continent but Antarctica. Even its names celebrate its fame as a road warrior: It’s commonly called the Wandering Glider or Globe Skimmer, while the Latin Pantala means “All Wings.”

Here in North America, the Wandering Glider’s migration resembles the Large Milkweed Bug’s, a straightforward north-south movement down the continent. But the dragonfly’s quest on the other side of the Atlantic is something else again.

Over the course of multiple generations, populations of this tiny insect—it’s less than two inches long—make an 11,200-mile roundtrip trip from India all the way to East Africa and back again. To do so, individual dragonflies can travel nearly 4000 miles, crossing the Indian Ocean en route, which means flying hundreds of miles with no food, drink, or rest along the way. This is both the longest migration and the only transoceanic journey known among insects.

Entomology Mumbo-Jumbo by Killskerry

“Known among insects” is important here. Only in recent years have scientists come to realize how many insect species migrate, and (even more strikingly) how many individual insects do. A mind-boggling 2016 study published in Science, for example, estimated that 3.5 trillion insects migrate each year over southern England alone.

If that number is hard to comprehend (and of course it is), think of it the way mathematicians do: One million seconds passes in about 11.5 days, one billion in about 32 years, and one trillion in 32,000 years. So counting the insects flying over southern England, one bug per second, would take more than 100,000 years.

How about this: The average weight of an insect has been put at around 3 milligrams, or 1/10,000^th of an ounce. The study’s authors estimated the combined weight of all those insects flying over England at 3200 tons. That’s 6,400,000 pounds of what the authors call “invisibles,” all moving from place to place while most of us aren’t paying attention.

Such vast migrations must have a direct impact on ecosystems, repeatedly bringing in waves of predators and prey, pollinators and plant eaters, diversity and diseases to new ecosystems. Yet very few studies have even attempted to measure that impact, much less the effect that climate change and other alterations in the environment might be having on insect migration.

I’m eager to learn much more about this fascinating subject. For now, whenever I spot a Monarch or Wandering Glider making its way south in the fall, I’m reminded of the vast mysteries these tiny creatures conceal…and humbled by how much we have yet to learn about them, and about the world we all share.

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Backyard Habitats/ Birding/ SMRA

The Jungle Next Door

SMRA September 7, 2021

Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always wanted to be someplace else.

Growing up in Midwood, Brooklyn, I dreamed constantly of exploring exotic lands. I remember imagining that my postage-stamp backyard was a jungle where I might at any moment come upon a snarling jaguar or agile monkey. Climbing our big magnolia tree and turning over rocks and flagstones, I felt like I got to know every bug that lived there and every bird that passed through.

I took more far-flung journeys in books: The Mysterious Island, The Lost World, any novel that took me to places like Mars and Middle Earth. I also devoured every nonfiction book of travel and adventure I could get my hands on. (Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, describing his childhood roaming free on the island of Corfu, was a favorite.)

When I began my writing career, I finally had my chance. Focusing on nature and the environment, I suddenly had the resources to travel to the distant lands I’d long dreamed of. A few times each year, I got to wake up where the air smelled new and the light looked different, to see the creatures that inhabited the world’s deserts, rain forests, and tropical oceans.

I thought I’d be living like that forever. But then, of course, the world changed, and like everyone I found myself stuck close to home. Once again, as during my Brooklyn childhood, my horizons shrank mostly to the flowers, trees, and rocks in my yard.

And, just as I’d done then, I started to check out those flowers and trees and turn over those rocks.

The first place I explored was our new pollinator garden, which in this season is swarming with an astonishing variety of butterflies, bees, and other little creatures, most of which I’d never even known existed till now. (Thanks to the invaluable Seek smartphone app for my ability to put names to them.)

Golden Digger Wasp. US Fish & Wildlife Service.

Perhaps the most striking current inhabitants of the garden are the bees and wasps. (I never knew so many species lived around here!) The huge purple-black and black-and-orange wasps with ever-flickering wings are Great Black and Great Golden Digger Wasps. Smaller but just as vivid are the Blue-winged and Noble Scoliid Wasps, whose most distinctive markings are the bright orange-and-yellow patterns on their abdomens. Then there’s the one with perhaps the most descriptive name in waspdom: the Four-banded Stinkbug Hunter Wasp.

Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp.

Like the spectacular—and unnecessarily feared—Cicada Killer, all of these fascinating wasps are parasitic, stinging and paralyzing a variety of insect prey to feed their young. They’re all also unaggressive towards humans. I’ll be writing about them, and parasitism in general, in more detail soon.

Among the bees, the constant presence of honeybees shows that there must be hives nearby, though I don’t know where. Familiar Common Eastern Bumblebees bumble around, as do rotund and shiny Eastern Carpenter Bees. And I’m always on the lookout for rarer species like the Black-and-Gold and endangered Rusty-patched Bumble Bees. (These last two are typically found on grasslands or prairies, so are much less likely in my yard than in the restored grasslands of nearby Croton Point Park. But you never know if you don’t look.)

Rusty-Patched Bumblebee

And the caterpillars and butterflies! Of course we’ve had Monarchs around our butterfly weed and Black Swallowtail caterpillars on our fennel. What has especially intrigued me, however, are the less well-known species, ones I’d hardly ever noticed but now watch out for. They come with such evocative names as Summer Azure, Eastern Comma, Cloudless Sulfur, and the small, subtly beautiful Grey Hairstreak.

Gray Hairstreak

The Hairstreak, one of my favorites, has evolved a brilliant defensive technique: It can wiggle tiny “tails” on the backs of its wings independent from the wings themselves. Why is this brilliant? Because predators, mistaking the wiggling tails for the Hairstreak’s antenna, attack the back of the butterfly’s wings instead of its head, giving it a much better chance to escape.

All this is richness enough, and I haven’t even mentioned the moths (I recently found a gorgeous Delicate Cycnia resting under a winterberry leaf), the gaudy Milkweed beetles, or the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds sipping nectar and American Goldfinches checking out the coneflower seeds. Taken together, the abundance and diversity of life on our Brooklyn-sized postage stamp is astonishing.

Delicate Cycnia. Photo: John Rinker. Maryland Biodiversity Project.

I will never lose my desire to travel. When the world finally and truly reopens, I know I’ll be out seeking new light, new air, new birdsong. But I will also never again forget what I knew as a child and was forced to re-learn this year.

There is a jungle out there. To see it, you just have to take the time to look.

Backyard Habitats/ Birding/ SMRA

It’s All in the Name

SMRA August 3, 2021

For the past couple of weeks, a hummingbird has been visiting our blooming pollinator garden. We’ve loved watching it buzz around from flower to flower, and we’re happy to know that our garden is helping supply it with the food it will need for its long southbound journey this fall.

It’s a member of the one hummingbird species that we’re likely to see around here: a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Watching it, I’ve been reminded again of the problem with the species’ name: The bird in our garden is a female, and female Ruby-throats don’t have ruby throats. (Theirs are a dirty white.)

I could probably write an entire essay on species named after a feature found only in the male (and speculate on the fact that nearly every bird species was named by a man), but the Ruby-throat made me think of something else.

Our bird names are not only inaccurate, they’re boring.

I don’t mean the Latin scientific names, which experts use to make sure they’re clearly identifying the bird they’re talking about. Those are essential, with Latin (no one’s first language) serving as a kind of lingua franca worldwide.

I mean the English common names, which are merely handy ways for laypeople (and scientists, when they’re not working) to talk about a bird without sounding pretentious. (You’d be much more likely to say, “I saw a robin,” or even “an American Robin,” than try to impress your friends with, “I observed a Turdus migratorius.”)

And however much English has become “the world’s language” (too much, in my opinion), it is not the only language used to name birds. My field guide to the birds of Belize, for example, points out that Ramphastos sulfuratus, the Keel-billed Toucan in English, is called the Belizean Bill Bird in Belizean Kriol, the Selepan in the Mayan language spoken by the nation’s Q’eqchi’ communities, and the Pun by the Mopan Maya people.

Keel-billed Toucan. Photo Joe Wallace

So, since neither science nor the world demands it, why choose such a bland name as “Keel-billed” to describe this spectacular toucan? The answer, of course, is that the common name is most often designed to help us identify a species, to point us towards the feature that will allow us to go “aha!” and check it off our list.

This is a fine idea, but the truth is that birds’ common names often fail at even this modest endeavor. Too often, they’re both dull and unhelpful.

Take our example, the Keel-billed Toucan. I’ve never learned what a “keeled” bill looks like, much less how to spot one when the bird is perched in a tree a hundred feet up. And I probably never will, mostly because I don’t have to: This gaudy bird boasts at least four other more distinctive features, most spectacularly its enormous rainbow bill, which is unlike any other large toucan’s.

So why not borrow from the Kriol and call it the Many-colored Bill Bird instead? Or the Rainbow-schnozzed or Red-butted Bigbill? (Okay, those last two might be too much to ask.)

Why not? My guess is because scientists think that such names wouldn’t be dignified enough for the genus Ramphastos, which includes all the large toucans. (The makers of Froot Loops cereal might disagree.) Instead we get not only the Keel-billed Toucan but its close relatives the Channel-billed (I defy you to spot the “channel” in the field); Yellow-throated (that’s fine…except that many other Ramphastos toucans have yellow throats as well); and Citron-throated (um, “citron” is basically another word for yellow.)

Sadly, toucans are far from alone in being given names that are both dull and unhelpful. To find an example closer to home, take a look at the Red-bellied Woodpecker. Then take another look and try to spot its red belly. Or, rather, don’t bother: I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d prefer to identify this common species by its barred back, red cap and nape, buffy face and breast, and distinctive, throaty call. (By the way, the reddish belly does exist, but is rarely noticeable.)

Black-capped Chickadee. Photo: www.allaboutbirds.org

And then there’s the Black-capped Chickadee. While this species does boast a prominent black cap, so does the Carolina Chickadee (which overlaps with the Black-cap in part of their ranges) and a couple of other chickadee species. It’s not a very distinguishing characteristic.

I could go on, but I won’t. And, to be fair, some of our species have been given more vivid names. The Northern Catbird is named after its meowing call, the Bald Eagle is a livelier name than “White-headed,” and the Scarlet Tanager’s moniker seems to capture that species’ vibrancy pretty well. But such examples are too few and far between.

The most frustrating thing about all this is that it’s not even necessary! There’s no rule dictating what kind of common name ornithologists must choose. And with one family of birds at least, they have allowed their most poetic impulses to run free. That family is Trochilidae, the hummingbirds, the same one that contains our own (blandly and incompletely named) Ruby-throated.

I don’t know why hummingbirds have been treated differently. Perhaps they’re simply too beautiful to saddle with something dull. For whatever reason, most aren’t even called “hummingbird.” Instead, even a quick look through the plates of my Ecuador bird guide reveals such glories as the Crowned Woodnymph, Spangled Coquette, Blue-chinned Sapphire, White-vented Plumeleteer, Green-tailed Trainbearer, Empress Brilliant, Tourmaline Sunangel, Violet-tailed Sylph, and Amethyst Woodstar.

Tufted Coquette. Photo: ebird.org

Brilliants! Coquettes! Woodnymphs! Don’t those names make you want to drop everything and go chasing after the birds themselves? They do me. And they don’t even include what may be my favorite bird name of all, a hummingbird named by someone who must have been head over heels for the species and its whole remarkable family.

The Shining Sunbeam.

Shining Sunbeam. Photo: surfbirds.com

Looking at the picture of the Shining Sunbeam in my Ecuador guide, I’m struck by the fact that it isn’t even the most spectacular of hummers. (Take a glance at the Crimson Topaz or Rainbow Starfrontlet for ones that can make your jaw drop.) The name is also completely unhelpful as an ID tool; if you’re searching for a sunbeam come to life, what features do you look for?

But who cares? By giving hummingbirds such glorious names, scientists have made “helpfulness” secondary to something far more important: Reminding us that birds are themselves glorious, and that getting to share the planet with them is a gift worth celebrating.

Look, such names tell us. Look closely. Aren’t they beautiful, like sunbeams?

Backyard Habitats/ Birding/ SMRA

It’s a Bird’s Life: The Ruby-Throat

SMRA July 12, 2021

April and May in our region—and throughout the world’s temperate climes—is a riot of color. The varied greens of newly emerging leaves, the rainbow of blooming flowers…and the arrival of vividly hued migrating birds. Around here, warblers, orioles, tanagers, and others add ever-changing splashes of yellow, orange, crimson, blue, and green to the landscape.

By June, though, many of those species will have headed north towards their nesting grounds. What sticks around all summer from the vast flood of migrants are the American Robins, Gray Catbirds, House Wrens, Eastern Bluebirds, and others that stay to raise their young in our region. Over the course of the summer, we find their nests, hear their babies begging for food, spot their ragged, tailless, newly fledged young hopping around on our lawns. And we begin, quite naturally, to think of them as “our” birds.

But are they really ours? After all, most of our nesting migratory birds don’t arrive till May, and many start heading south again in September. The Northeastern U.S. is their home for only about four months, which means that they live elsewhere for a full eight months of the year.

Range map for Ruby-throated Hummingbird. From: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ruby-throated_Hummingbird/maps-range

And while we might be very familiar with their summertime habits, most of us know little about their lives once they leave. How do they get where they’re going? What do they eat, and what eats them? Where do they even spend the winters? (After all, “south” isn’t a very specific destination.)

There are as many answers to those questions as there are species of bird, and over the coming months I’ll talk about several of them. Today, I’ll focus on the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

For those of us living in the Northeast (in fact, in virtually the entire eastern United States and Canada), “hummingbird” means just a single species: This little, shining-green, quicksilver bird whose male’s throat glitters a vivid red in the sunlight. That’s because the Ruby-throat is a true outlier: Among the more than 300 species that make up the vast hummingbird family Trochilidae, it’s the only one to brave our often harsh and unforgiving climate…even if for only part of the year.

Broad-billed hummingbird (male) in Arizona. [click image for more Arizona butterflies and photo credit.]

As you travel south and west into warmer climes, the hummingbird picture is very different. Arizona, for example, has more than a dozen regularly occurring species, Mexico 50 or so, and Panama around 60. Hummingbird diversity reaches a breathtaking peak within a few degrees of the equator, with Colombia and Ecuador—two small countries split by that line—boasting nearly 150 species each.

Most of these species spend all or much of the year in one small area, but Ruby-throats don’t have that luxury. Like all hummingbirds, they rely on a diet of nectar and tiny insects and spiders, neither of which are in much supply during our long winter. To survive, therefore, they have to fly.

And fly they do. These minuscule birds—perhaps three inches long and weighing about a tenth of an ounce—undertake an extraordinary annual migration. Most spend their winters in Mexico and Central America as far south as Panama, a trip that usually includes a nonstop flight across the Gulf of Mexico. That flight—which can cover 1000 or more miles—can take 20 or more hours.

How remarkable is this feat? In a normal day, a Ruby-throat eats up to half its own body mass and drinks sixteen times that much. To expend so much energy without being able to replenish it makes their trip across the Gulf almost impossible to imagine.

As soon as they reach their destination, Ruby-throats’ habits change. Up here, for example, they’re birds of backyards and mixed fields and woodlands, but on their wintering grounds they choose landscapes as diverse as shade-grown coffee plantations, dry forests, and citrus groves.

None of their new homes provide for a relaxing winter vacation. On its nesting grounds, the Ruby-throat is usually the only bird that drinks nectar, but in Panama it joins those other 59 hummingbird species. Given how territorial most members of the family are, Ruby-throats must compete far more aggressively for a drink at a prized patch of flowers or feeder than they ever do up here.

During their months in Central America, Ruby-throats also must contend with myriad other threats. During the summer, their main predators are domestic cats, small, agile raptors (like Sharp-shinned Hawks and American Kestrels) and, remarkably, large insects like dragonflies and invasive Chinese Mantids. They face many of the same predators on their wintering grounds, but also must contend with wild cats like margays and jaguarundis, the small but fierce Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (which often hunts by day), iguanas and other large lizards, and even toucans.

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird on Scarlet Bee-Balm, Monarda didyma. From: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ruby-throated_Hummingbird/id

And then, after enduring all the challenges and risks of the winter months, they must retrace their same incredible journey as they head north with the changing seasons. When the first Ruby-throat visits our flowerbeds or feeder in May, we’re seeing a true survivor.

During the long, cold winter, it’s easy to forget that “our” migratory birds even exist, except as part of our yearning for spring to come. For me, though, there’s a true sense of wonder in getting a fuller picture of their lives, the lives that take place far from our backyards.

Next up when I return to this series: That bold, brash bully the Eastern Kingbird, whose winter story is one of my favorite of all.

SMRA

The Odd Duck

SMRA June 20, 2021

Odd duck. It’s such a strange, old-fashioned way to portray a person, but I’ve never found a better term to describe my father.

Stanley Wallace always stood out from the flock. A lifelong Brooklynite, he sounded like an English professor, never using the wonderfully clamorous accent that made his borough famous. He was a lifelong baseball fan, but unlike the hordes of Dodgers fans around him, he rooted for their archrival New York Giants. (And, later, for the Mets, which did reunite him with the rest of his borough.)

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, when any sort of activism on racial or political issues could get you into deep trouble, he was a believer in social justice. Even though he graduated from Duke University at age 19 at the top of his class, his modest outreach—such as attending interfaith services and planning sessions in Black churches—nearly destroyed his chances of getting into medical school. (He was finally admitted to the 34^th school he applied to, opening the doors to a celebrated, deeply fulfilling career as a rheumatologist, researcher, and educator.)

Dad stood out in another way, too: Decades before the environmental movement blossomed in the 1960s, he was an ardent environmentalist, enthusiastic amateur naturalist, and list-keeping birder. (Though of course it was called “bird-watching” back then.)

I grew up to share my father’s refusal to march to anyone else’s drum, his beliefs in social justice, and (alas) his devotion to the Mets. But perhaps the passion that lives on most strongly in me is his unwavering love of the natural world, his desire to see it preserved, and his enthusiasm for what inhabits it.

Especially the birds.

Among the vast array of species out there, Dad’s favorites were those found near water: the herons, egrets, and other wading birds, followed closely by the sandpipers, plovers, and other shorebirds. These may seem like still more iconoclastic choices (waterbirds for a man who lived in Midwood?), but Dad’s vision always stretched far beyond his urban backyard. Starting in the early 1940s, when both national enthusiasm for nature and access to the waters surrounding New York City were at a low, he found Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, hard by Idlewild (later Kennedy) Airport in Queens.

Jamaica Bay, which comprises 12,600 acres of open water, salt marshes, brackish ponds, and woodlands, came under the auspices of the National Park Service in 1972 as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. But when Dad started visiting it—and when he first brought me there two decades later—this unique spot was managed as a park and preserve by New York City.

In virtually every season, Jamaica Bay provided me (and, at various times, my two brothers) with an early education in the ebb and flow of bird life throughout the seasons. Even with its smoggy air, views of distant city buildings, and the occasional roar of jets coming in low to the airport, it felt like a visit to an older, purer world than the one we usually inhabited.

In spring and summer, the salt marshes and edges of the large, freshwater West Pond were dotted with birds you could hardly believe would even visit the big city. Great and Little Blue Herons and Snowy and Great Egrets would stalk the shallows, while American Coots and various ducks would paddle in the deeper areas.

The refuge was also home to the fascinatingly prehistoric Glossy Ibis, which to Dad and me truly represented the magic and mystery of birds. Even now, decades later, I’ve only seen this odd species, with its dark, iridescent plumage and scimitar-like beak, in a few other places. It will always represent Jamaica Bay to me.

The last stretch of the trail around the West Pond took visitors away from the water and through some woods. Dad and I always enjoyed this change of pace, which gave us the chance to glimpse colorful songbirds like Baltimore Orioles and Scarlet Tanagers, and—on peak spring-migration days—flitting little things like warblers and vireos. Jamaica Bay awoke in me a lifelong love of these tiny avian gems, though to Dad they simply moved too fast and hid too well to be much fun.

Our last stop was usually at the wilder East Pond, a haven for shorebirds in summer and fall. I always enjoyed seeing the Yellowlegs, Willets, and other larger species (and still do!) we spotted there. But Dad had a special affection for the little, hard-to-identify sandpiper species collectively known as “peeps,” which would always spur him to pull out his trusty Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds. (He carried—and I inherited—a 1947 edition of that visionary forerunner to all other field guides.)

I rarely saw Dad happier than when we were carefully studying a bird, knowing that eventually we’d reach that “aha!” moment and give a name to the one we were looking at. I think the process must have appealed to the research scientist in him, as it appeals to the writer, amateur naturalist, and birder in me.

After our visit to the East Pond, we’d head home, a transition that always came as a shock to me. Within ten minutes we’d have left the wilds behind for the endless commercial strip that was Cross Bay Boulevard. Not that civilization didn’t have its benefits: We’d always stop for lunch at Buddy’s, a huge, noisy restaurant where we both enjoyed the hot dogs and I got to play the pinball machines.

But I always felt a sense of loss, of being thrown out of paradise, as we left Jamaica Bay behind, and I know Dad felt it too. I think it was that feeling, of something precious lost, that most spurred my lifelong love for nature, my drive to do whatever I can to help preserve what’s left, and my unquenchable yen to visit places as familiar as Croton Point Park and as exotic as the Serengeti Plains or the Great Barrier Reef. It’s not just wanderlust, but something deeper and more essential: the desire to recapture the wonder I felt back then, every time I saw my first ibis of the spring.

Stanley Wallace passed away in 1989, a dedicated physician, educator, conservationist, and birder to the last. Today I want to say Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Thank you for showing me Jamaica Bay, and for being the odd duck you were.

SMRA

The Red Shadow

SMRA June 4, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were taking a morning walk in Croton. It was a typically lovely spring morning on a beautiful village street, with birds singing and new leaves glowing in the sun. Then we saw something that didn’t seem to fit: a red shadow moving quickly and silently across a lawn and into a patch of woods.

A few mornings later, I was birding up near the model-airplane field in Croton Point Park. I stepped around a bend and glimpsed, at the far end of a clearing, a quick movement. A shape against the green, dark eyes gazing at me in surprise (“What are you doing here?”) before a reddish shape vanished into tall grass.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_hodapp/

Then, a week or so later, I was attending a family reunion up on Cape Cod, and it seemed like red shadows were everywhere. Only now I could see they weren’t just quickly vanishing shapes, but Red Foxes. Out in the open, trotting along roads and through yards, so clearly a part of the landscape that I decided I had to write about them.

My sightings weren’t unusual. Red Foxes have always lived in the Northeastern U.S., but though populations fluctuate from year to year, it’s clear that the species finds our mix of woodlands, brush, lawn (and the prey such an ecosystem provides) very much to their liking. In this they join Eastern Coyotes, Black Bears, Bobcats, and smaller hunters such as Mink and weasels, all of which have learned to coexist with humans.

The Northeast is far from alone in being prime fox habitat. In fact, the Red Fox is the single most widespread mammal species on Earth besides humans. It ranges widely across most of Europe, temperate Asia, and North Africa as well as nearly all of North America.

The Red Fox is comfortable in a variety of habitats within this wide range, thriving in landscapes as varied as Arctic tundra and sere desert. It can even adapt to cities: In the U.K. alone, for example, scientists estimate the population of “urban foxes” (yes, they’ve been given their own category) at more than 30,000 animals. The sight of foxes on the streets has become routine for residents, if always startling at first for visitors.

What makes Red Foxes so adaptable? First, they’re skilled hunters of mice, voles, rabbits, small birds, and large insects, often capturing their prey with a high, four-footed leap and headfirst dive. (In winter, they’ll sometimes disappear entirely beneath the snow, only to emerge, triumphant, with their prey in their jaws.)

Fascinatingly, researchers have discovered that nearly all fox pounces are oriented towards the northeast, regardless of weather, wind, or other conditions. The theory: The animals use the earth’s magnetic field to help them pinpoint their prey, even when it’s under the snow or otherwise out of sight. If this proves true, foxes will be added to the list of animal species—which includes migrating birds, butterflies, and whales—that use magnetic fields to orient and direct themselves.

Red Foxes don’t even need to employ their full stalking and pouncing arsenal to find much of their food, especially in our area. In fact, like many domestic dogs, they’ll eat almost anything: eggs, fruit, carrion, grain (they especially love sunflower seeds, which means they’ll thank you for feeding the birds in your yard), leftover food from garbage cans and dumpsters, and pet food left outside.

Notoriously, they also like chicken. As a result, many farmers loathe the sight of a Red Fox, even though on balance foxes’ impact on rodent populations make them beneficial even around farms.

Another reason that foxes do well: Not much hunts them. They are preyed upon by Coyotes, especially the nearly wolf-sized coyote-wolf-dog hybrids that have spread across the Northeast in recent decades. It will be interesting to see if expanding Coyote populations will lead to a decline in fox numbers.

You’ll rarely see more than one or two Red Foxes at a time, for unlike wolves and many other canines, they don’t tend to run in packs. Both parents, however, help to raise the kits, and if you see a fox abroad during the day in the spring, it’s likely a parent hunting for food to bring back to a nearby den.

So what should you look for if you want to catch a glimpse of a “red shadow”? Don’t rely on spotting a vivid coat, because Red Fox coloration can be remarkably varied. The coat can range from a dark red to pinkish/orange, while black, brown, and silver/gray forms also exist. Many but not all individuals have a white tip to the tail, yet some (called “cross foxes”) have a black stripe down their back and another across their shoulders.

So the best advice is to keep an eye out for a medium-sized, agile, doglike creature with a fluffy tail moving quickly out of sight. (Red Foxes are usually 36-40 inches long, including the tail, and weigh somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds, so anything much larger is either a Coyote or a dog.)

Or you can listen for them. Red Foxes don’t bark, yip, howl, or bay at the moon. Their bone-chillingly loud call (usually made in the depths of night), sounds like a human scream. The cry is usually over something as mundane as a territorial dispute, but try telling that to your pounding heart after you’ve been woken out of a sound sleep at 3:00 A.M.

A long look, a quick glimpse, an empty bird feeder, or a scream in the night—they all remind us that we live alongside a sleek, complex, and endearing little predator. In an increasingly crowded world, that’s something to notice, and to celebrate.

SMRA

The Invaders and Us

SMRA May 18, 2021

This is a difficult essay for me to write.

I was raised with the core belief that nature is precious and fragile, something that you explore and marvel at but never, ever interfere with. You are inside it, but you also stand apart, and you always leave it strictly alone. (Though I confess that as a child I broke with this philosophy when it came to catching the occasional frog, turtle, or interesting bug.)

By now I know that this is not how it works: However much we may want to, we don’t stand apart from nature. As long as humans have been on Earth, our actions have affected, often disastrously, the world we live in. Every time we clear a woodlot for development, replace an untended field or meadow with a pesticide-ridden lawn, or even remove a single dead tree so it doesn’t fall on our house, we’re making life harder for the species who live alongside us.

Fortunately, we can also recognize the changes we’ve wrought and take action to halt or even reverse them. Among the results of our efforts over recent decades: Cleaner air and local waters and other regulations that have allowed populations of Bald Eagles, Osprey, Mink, and many other species to rebound.

Yet even now the belief that we should simply leave nature alone remains a hard one to abandon. This is especially true when it comes to confronting the plague of introduced, invasive species humans have brought here: plants and animals that gravely threaten countless species native to our region.

We want to reject the very idea of labeling parts of nature “good” and “bad.” Doing so feels like an example of the same arrogant, godlike attitude that got us into this mess in the first place. Yet when it comes to invasive species, I believe we must exercise our power over the world around us. We are responsible for the presence of these alien species on our shores, and it’s our responsibility to do something about them.

This, however, is much more easily said than done. Together, the following three examples—so different on the surface but so similar in deeper detail—illustrate just a few of the challenges we face as we try to reconcile what we want to do with what we must do.

Lesser Celandine

Lesser Celandine is a beautiful plant, with glossy dark-green leaves and lovely, sun-shaped yellow flowers. An ephemeral (short-lived) bloomer, it’s also one of the first signs of spring, providing early splashes of color to a monochromatic landscape.

On first glance, Lesser Celandine would seem like a welcome addition to any spring woods. But the truth is that it’s a horrendously—and nearly unstoppably—invasive species that can wreak havoc on nearly every ecosystem in our region, from backyard gardens to the largest state parks and preserves.

Lesser Celandine is native to the Old World (Europe, Asia, and Africa). It was first brought to the U.S. as an ornamental in the 19^th century, but has become increasing popular in recent decades, especially in the East. After all, who wouldn’t want a lovely spring carpet of green and yellow in the garden?

Yet keeping it in the garden has proven impossible, as Lesser Celandine finds the New World an ideal place to invade and conquer. It thrives in everything from full shade to full sun, and while preferring moist soil, manages just fine in rockier, less welcoming habitats.

And it’s still spreading west and south. The first Lesser Celandines in the Cleveland area, for example, were planted in just two gardens in the 1970s. Today, the plant has spread to more than 300 acres of nearby parkland, making up more than 50% of the ground cover in much of that land.

What makes the Lesser Celandine so successful an invader? It’s brilliantly designed to spread relentlessly. Relying on three different methods of reproduction—seeds, tubers in the soil, and bulbils, which are essentially tiny, easily spread clones of the plant located on the flower stems—it can quickly create thick, virtually impenetrable mats covering an entire forest floor.

Native plants have little or no ability to withstand a spreading mat of Lesser Celandine. Since it sprouts so early, by the time native ephemerals (such as spring beauties, Dutchman’s breeches, and trilliums) start to emerge, there are simply not enough air, light, or soil nutrients left for them.

On top of all that, Lesser Celandine is hellishly difficult to control or eradicate. While on its home turf, insects, fungi, bacteria, and other species help keep it in check, our local defenders simply don’t recognize or control it.

The tubers on the roots—easily broken off and left behind while digging up a plant—make removing even a small patch of Lesser Celandine into backbreaking work. You may have to dig up a patch repeatedly over several years. Yet its effects on our forest habitats vividly show the importance of controlling this relentless invader before it drives fragile native species to extinction.

House Sparrow

Unlike Lesser Celandine, House Sparrows (first imported from Europe in the 1850s) are not beautiful (though males in fresh plumage can look attractively natty.) They’re not ephemeral at all, sticking around all year in our region. And they can’t clone themselves or spread via tubers.

But in the most important ways, House Sparrows check off the boxes an invader needs to succeed. They’re comfortable living close to humans, especially in cities and suburbs. They eat a wide variety of grains and seeds and are happy to supplement that diet with discarded human foods and insects of many different kinds.

Most critically, they are aggressive and adaptable breeders. They evolved to nest in natural cavities in rock and trees, but have adapted easily to holes in buildings, streetlight fixtures, roofs, and nest boxes originally designed for threatened Eastern Bluebirds or Tree Swallows. House Sparrows will aggressively commandeer both human-made and natural nest sites used by these and other species, killing the original nestlings and even parent birds sitting on a nest.

Actress, environmental activist, and National Audubon Society board member Lili Taylor has dubbed the male House Sparrow’s monotonous, single-pitch chorus the “chirp of death.” When you hear the chirp of death, you know that nearby nest sites have most likely already been taken over and their occupants chased away or killed.

So what’s to be done about House Sparrows? Unlike native birds, they are not protected by law, so the best solution may be the toughest one: killing or trapping the birds. (Some raptor rehab facilities welcome trapped sparrows as hawk food.) Few communities or individuals may have the stomach for such campaigns, however.

At the very least, though, we can keep an eye on local nest boxes. By evicting any House Sparrows who start building nests there and destroying any eggs they’ve laid, we can take an important step in limiting the damage this aggressive invader can do.

Chinese Mantid

This section is the one that makes me saddest. I have no fondness for Lesser Celandine, and I frankly loathe the presence of House Sparrows and their “chirp of death.”

But praying mantises? They’ve been my favorite insects since I was a child. I love them for their hunting prowess, unsettlingly human gaze, flexible necks, and amazing camouflage. (If you never have, Google “Leaf Mantis” and “Dead Leaf Mantis.”)

But it turns out that the mantid I’ve loved the most ever since my Brooklyn childhood is the Chinese Mantid, an invader from Asia introduced accidentally in 1896. (And still sold as a “pest control” solution at garden centers and online.) But far from helping control pests, this huge insect (individuals can reach 5″ in length) has nearly extirpated the small, slender native Carolina Mantid, both by outcompeting it for prey and eating it outright.

And smaller mantises form only a tiny part of a Chinese Mantid’s prey. An indiscriminate feeder, it uses powerful, barbed front limbs and lightning-fast reflexes to snatch and eat virtually any creature it can handle, including insects, small birds, lizards, and even an occasional mouse or other small mammal.

Native bees, wasps, butterflies, and other crucial—and besieged—pollinator insects are major parts of the Chinese Mantid’s diet. So are Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, also an important pollinator species. Even the perpetually endangered Monarch Butterfly—left alone by most predators due to its toxicity—isn’t immune. Not affected by the toxins, a single mantid may stake out a patch of milkweed until it’s devoured every last caterpillar and butterfly in the area.

So what’s to be done about Chinese Mantids? Here the answer is clear, however much I hate to say it: If you find one, kill it. Last fall I came upon a huge individual in our pollinator garden, and by the time I steeled myself for the unwelcome task, it had captured and was devouring two small and beautiful native wasps, one in each forelimb.

Tenodera sinensis (Chinese mantid) ootheca. Okehocking Preserve, Newtown Square, PA.

During the winter, you can also keep an eye out on bare branches of bushes and shrubs for the species’ distinctive egg cases. Remove and destroy any you find. (Or, if you don’t happen to raise chickens, give them to a friend who does—the birds love this tasty snack.) Eliminating egg cases, each of which can contain up to 300 eggs, can be an important step in controlling the species’ local populations.

Despite the realities facing us, the concept of destroying any living thing—even an invasive one—can still feel deeply, painfully wrong, like breaking a heartfelt promise. But the truth is clear: Many of our most precious native species, crucial parts of the web of life in our region, are under intense pressure. If we want to preserve and nurture what’s left, then we can no longer simply leave nature alone.

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