Walker Nature Center
A LOOK INSIDE • Calendar 4 • Kids’ Corner 6 • The Good, the Bad and the Banned 7
Nature Notes MARCH By Sharon Gurtz
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Bluebirds are looking for nests. Groundhogs emerge and mate. Spotted Salamanders lay eggs in vernal pools. Maple trees have red blooms.
APRIL • • • •
Dogwood and Red Bud trees bloom. American Toads lay eggs in ponds and streams. Spring Azure and Tiger Swallowtail butterflies are in flight. Bloodroot, Trillium and Virginia Bluebells bloom.
MAY • • • •
Barred Owl babies are active. White-tailed Deer are born. May Apple, Wood Poppy and Jack-in-the-Pulpit bloom. Eastern Box Turtles lay eggs.
BRANCHING OUT Planting for a Web of Life By Idalina Walker
Have you spent the winter feeding Numerous studies have shown that and admiring the local birds? The seed insect populations have declined by 45 you put out was certainly appreciated percent in the last 40 years. A simple by our feathered friends. But with the indicator you may have observed is the arrival of spring, our local birds go relatively fewer smashed bugs on your into overdrive, searching for habitat windshield after a long car trip. So what that has a suitable insect population can you do to help the insect population to feed its young. Did you know which is such an integral part of that it takes more than 6,000 the food chain? caterpillars to feed a healthy clutch of chickadees to Where it all begins maturity? Where the Nature is organized caterpillars come from into ecosystems within and which species of which there are complex plants they live on food webs. When we are questions that we learned about simple need to ask ourselves food chains in our first more frequently, biology classes, “grass” especially if we try to was a common example think like a chickadee. of the basic trophic level. But as our understanding of Many native insects have evolved ecosystems deepens, we come to be dependent on specific host to appreciate that it’s not as simple as plants, resistant to any toxins which the hawk that ate the mouse that ate they may contain. They lay their eggs the grasshopper which dined on the on these hosts so that their young grass. In reality, all grass is not created will have an instant and nutritious equal and monocultures of grass that meal once hatched. Unfortunately, comprise the perfect lawns in much of non-native landscaping plants and suburbia are having a drastic effect on invasives have different chemistry the health of our ecosystems. than their native counterparts. Continued on page 2 Laying eggs on them will lead to a caterpillar’s demise.
Spring 17 Volume Nineteen