You may have heard about it (this push-study was picked up by many-a-news source). In an effort to bash non-native plants, research was done which ‘concluded’ that unless your yard is 70% or more native plants, chickadees are doomed. I hope you are hungry because there will be whopper alerts!But first, from the home of this study (the Univ. of Delaware), a lesson brought to you by their Department of Psychology. If you really want to sell something, you need a hook, or a bright and shiny object…anything to distract so that your mark will take leave of his senses and, thus, buy your product. Sometimes it expedites things to have a chick to help seal the deal…or, in the case of this study, a chickadee, aka the darling of backyard bird feeders. Whopper alert #1. The study determined that the Carolina Chickadee needs at least 70% of your property to be native plants. Never you mind that this bird will not be found in a field or meadow (of God’s or your own creation) of 100% native plants or a newly-regenerating clear cut or shrubland (scrubland) of 100% native plants. This is because (they don’t mention this) chickadees don’t need any ol’ native plants; they require them to be trees. To recap, you can have 100%, all native shrubs…and native herbaceous plants and grasses populating your yard, but if there is no tree in sight, you and the chickadee that you hope to help will be SOL. Only an agenda-driven study can make this 70%, bogus claim.So…moving on, chickadees need plenty of certain insect larvae that feed on our native trees, not so much for their continued survival as adult birds, but to get a nest full of chicks to adulthood. It’s sort of like mammals; they require milk as babies but not as adults. Whopper alert #2. Unfortunately, those researchers went on to extrapolate from their chickadee ‘feeding findings’ that, therefore, all birds that only feed insects to their chicks (which chickadees do) need native plants. A casual walk through suburbia will deliver you from this egregious falsehood. You will see that many native birds that require insects for nestlings do not need native plants. There is no shortage of cardinals…or song sparrows…or bluebirds, mockingbirds, catbirds, etc. The sterile yards that NPN’s rail against have native birds that can thrive there because insects aren’t just on native plants; they are everywhere, eating on everything including each other, even in the suburban, so-called ‘native plant deserts’.So, another hoped-for, takeaway for the public from this over-publicized study is that you should plant native plants to help not only the cute and adorable chickadee, but also moths and butterflies. This narrative is used to get some virtue growing in you, thus, you will more likely do as they say; destroy non-native plants. I mean…who wouldn’t want to help butterflies, right? BTW, you are a bad person if you don’t. That is the true end game of this manipulation. In your yard, the best thing for you to do is to have both kinds of plants. The local pollinators will thank you because native plants aren’t all that big on flowering all summer long, if at all, like this non-native abelia. You won’t see much in the way of late-winter-blooming native plants, either. However, their are many naturalized plants that hop to as soon as a little warmth arrives. They are a savior to the awakened-too-early pollinators due to changing weather patterns.This naturalized Black Knapweed, a guaranteed pollinator magnet has, for an herbaceous perennial, a longer flowering period than just about any native.Whopper alert #3 by omission. The dirty little study-secret. Shush! In this chickadee paper, they kept one bit of information as quiet as possible…they are called “sawflies”…shhhh! Ever heard of them (keep whispering)? Nobody likes them. Even Doug Tallamy doesn’t want to bring them up. The mere mention of them to a person who gardens strikes fear of defoliation into their minds and hearts (the study calls them caterpillar-like to avoid any public consternation). That’s why this critical larvae source for baby chickadees (more so than anything else, really)…is never discussed lest they put you off the idea of tearing out your non-native plants and replacing them with sawfly loving ones. Shameless!
Whopper alert #4 (agenda driven but not study-related). There is a photo which is attributed to NPN-icon, Doug Tallamy, showing a chickadee with a wad of sawfly larvae in its mouth, even though the insects in this photo, (this shot is used at multiple web sites) are always said to be caterpillars. To see for yourself go to:
Trying to control the narrative like this is so…so…fake newsesque!
So don’t feel like you have to get rid of your Tatarian Honeysuckle…or weigela…or your Burning Bush. Instead, replace as much of your grass as you can bear with as many different kinds of plants as you can bear. A world of animals requires a world of plants…original intent, you know. (check ‘alpha original intent’ page to see what the heck I’m talking about)And if ever you find yourself in your yard with Doug Tallamy or any NPN, both of you staring at your non-native plant while he/she dutifully regurgitates the ‘findings’ from this ‘study’, just politely listen like you would to any religious missionary. Eventually, they will go home.But you will know the truth about this push-research that only proved the already-known: Carolina Chickadees, which have been living in the eastern deciduous forest for thousands of years, need trees to survive. BTW…you, too, could get a PhD if you prove that, for example, woodpeckers…or this fury friend…or this favorite summer resident…need trees!
