What Wild Birds do For Us
Birds are More Than Pretty Winged Creatures They Offer Valuable Help
Dec 2, 2008
Birds are more to us than something to watch, they are caretakers of our foliage, the bark on our trees and the lawn under our feet. How? They eat bugs. Without their voracious appetites our world would be overrun with all manner of creepy, crawling creatures devouring everything living and green. Birds are watchdogs of unseen nature and a very important part of the environment.
Birds That Guard the Foliage
Chief among the birds that keep the foliage healthy are the vireos and warblers. They are the leaf pickers, eating insect eggs that have been deposited on the underside of the leaves. They also eat the insects and among their favorite food is cankerworm, leaf hoppers, lice, flies and ants.
The vireos seem to be the most thorough in their search for insect delicacy due to a quieter nature than the warblers. Warblers have a tendency to eat on the fly, grabbing a quick lunch, while the vireos take their time and inspect the leaves at leisure. Other feathered friends that help keep the foliage from being destroyed are bluebirds, thrushes, catbirds, wrens, tanagers, mockingbirds and robins.
Keeping Watch on the Trees
Millions of insects burrow into the scaly bark of a tree looking for a safe place to lay their eggs, but it is not surprising that they have a well known enemy who makes sure the next generation never sees the light of day. The noisy woodpecker isn't trying to annoy you; he's winning the battle against tree boring insects. When you see a woodpecker working his way around the tree take notice of his actions. He will stop every once in a while, listen and then start tapping. He is establishing where his victim is hiding. Then using his bill like a chisel and mallet he makes a hole through the bark and sticks his long tongue inside using it to 'spear' the bug. Woodpeckers work on beetles, caterpillars and timber ants along with other insects that aren't easily accessible to other birds.
The most beneficial of the woodpecker species are the downy and hairy woodpeckers but the flicker and red-headed do their share by eating grasshoppers, wasps and flies. Other birds that prey on some of the favorite woodpecker meals are the chickadees and nuthatches.
Cleaning the Lawn
Malignant underworlds of destroying insects live in the grass hidden beneath last year's leaves. White grubs, June bug larvae, maggots of crane-flies and wireworms just to name a few. There are also root-bores, grasshoppers, chinch bugs, cutworms, army worms and locusts that get their start in the dormant grass. On the front line of the fight against these are the beautiful meadowlarks, particularly in the fields.
The birds have been known to destroy millions of grasshoppers in one season since those particular pests represent about three-fourths of the meadowlarks' diet. Other birds that contribute to killing these pests are the blackbirds, robins, sparrows, brown thrashers and crows.
Weed Patrol
Birds do not live by insects alone they also eat seeds and with that in mind they help keep down weed population. The birds on weed patrol are generally the finches. The yellow and black American goldfinch are the unequaled champions when it comes to eating the seeds of crab grass, dandelion and plantain. The sparrows, white-throated, chipping and song sparrow run a close second. Other seed eating birds are the juncos, grosbeaks and siskins.
To get help in identifying wild birds in your area go to Wildbirds.com.
