THE LAKESHORE WILDLIFE FORAGE SHRUBS 



LIVING BIRDFEEDERS... 



David Eastman 



Native plants for bird-scaping iiave be 

 come increasingly popular over the last 

 few years. Environmentally conscious 

 gardeners have read Noak's Garden by 

 Sara Stein, in which she writes about 

 her land in Pound Ridge, New York. Native plants 

 generally require less maintenance and are durable 

 and hardy in our northern climes; climatic adjustments 

 have been made as part of their evolution They serve 

 very useful purposes in streambank stabilization and 

 erosion control. And they feed birds 



Rapid development on New Hampshire's lakes in 

 the 1980s led to a growing belief that shorelands 

 should remain natural. "Green hills equal blue lakes" 

 became the theme. An easy-to-read manual entitled 

 A Guide to Developing and Redeveloping Shoreline Property in 

 New Hampshire — a Blueprint to Help \ou Live by the "^ater, 

 authored by Ray Lobdell, is now available. And the 

 Lake Winnipesaukee Association has produced A Spe- 

 cial Place, written by John L. Moore, which further de- 

 fines watershed functions. 



What 1 find fascinating in the buffer zone desired at 

 the shoreline is that this shrubby vegetation feeds 

 the birds during migration and during the winter 

 months too. I stumbled upon the seed dispersal phre- 

 nology of New Hampshire's fruiting shrubs a decade 

 ago and have been self-employed enhancing and em- 

 bellishing this portion of the natural landscape ever 

 since. 



In the most basic terms, plants such as blueberry 

 and elderberry provide a meal (in the pulp of their 

 fruit) to songbirds in exchange for dispersal. Most 

 berries are the size of an average songbird's gap or 

 maw — roughly a quarter inch in diameter. If you think 

 of a wood thrush or robin, or perhaps a catbird or 

 mockingbird, you'll get the picture Diversity is the 

 key. If a forage shrub feeds a significant number of 

 birds, that gives it that many more ways of spreading 

 its seed. Wild grape, highbush blueberry, and elder- 

 berry are listed at the top of the forage shrubs for 

 feeding he greatest number of birds, depending on 

 which sources you read. All the viburnums and dog- 



woods are great wildlife feeders, as are the native 

 hollies (\lex) such as winterberry. See Trees, Shrubs, and 

 Vines for Attracting Birds, by Richard DeGraaf and 

 Gretchen M. Witman, for the authoritative listing of 

 birds feeding upon New England's native woody 

 plants. Food, cover, and nesting observations are re- 

 corded. This manual was published in Amherst in 1979 

 and is available from the University of Massachusetts. 

 From time to time, articles on backyard wildlife habi- 

 tat appear in Birder's World or Wild Bird magazines and 

 the North American Bluebird Society (NABS) has kept 

 a tally on the plants bluebirds prefer. 



Landscapers and nurserymen are probably going to 

 be prevailed upon to produce more of these native 

 plants in contemporary landscaping. Many cultivars 

 simply have no value as food plants and serve only as 

 ornamentals. Plants quite similar to the commonly se- 

 lected cultivars should be substituted because of their 

 bird-feeding qualities. What 1 find to be emphatically 

 interesting is that once you plant or keep in place 

 bird-attracting shrubs, you get more. The birds do the 

 work. As they visit the property, they bring the seeds 

 of other native plants in their bodies. Bird feeding 

 overhead in a mature black cherry will seed the 

 ground below with alternate-leafed. Red Osier, and 

 round-leaf dogwoods, witherod, winterberry, elder- 

 berry, raspberries, and introduced exotics such as 

 Japanese barberry. All you have to do is to clip un- 

 wanted hardwoods (such as red maple) which have 

 seeded in along with the desirable shrub species. 

 Lopping shears and motorized brush saws can be 

 used to release the forage shrubs and allow them to 

 take over the shoreline, stone wall, or hedgerow. 

 These are wildlife refuge or bird sanctuary manage- 

 ment techniques to keep the site in a state of "ar- 

 rested succession." The shrubs that provide food for 

 wildlife are all pioneer plants that use the birds and 

 mammals to colonize the available landscape. 



Landscapers contracted to redevelop a shoreline 

 that former owners attempted to suburbanize will find, 

 if they do it right, that their work can be aided by the 

 birds. Red-twig dogwood, winterberry, serviceberry, 



lune & luly 1995 



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