Disappearing Songbirds Need Help To Survive

City parks and landscaped yards used to be havens for both resident and migrating birds. Those micro-habitats still exist, but the birds are gone. Their larger habitats that would have held the bulk of their population have been destroyed: forests bulldozed or clear-cut, wetlands filled in, natural meadows planted with crops they can’t eat or replaced by a housing development or strip mall.

Birds, bugs and plants evolve together in their habitats, and all need each other to survive. The replacement of native flowers, grasses, trees and shrubs with imported and exotic plants from other parts of the world has helped cause a crisis in the songbird population by breaking the chain of interdependence amongst native species. Bottom line? No bugs, no birds.

Here is one example. In Ontario, Canada, purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) was imported as a pretty garden plant. It was wonderful, because it was resistant to pests. Then loosestrife seeds spread outside of gardens and into the wild.

In no time, loosestrife began colonizing wetlands. Bugs, birds and animals didn’t eat it. In a few years, the hardy invader had crowded out the native plants. Wetlands once filled with a great diversity of animals, birds and insects turned silent. No frogs. No dragonflies. No herons. No blackbirds. Nothing but silence.

Clear-cut forests once filled with a variety of plants and species of trees are often replanted with acres upon acres of identical trees. The living forest with all its interdependent species of wildlife has been replaced with the equivalent of a sterile tree factory.

This isn’t the only solution, but it is one way to help. When adding or replacing plants in a yard or garden, make an effort to use as many native species as possible. Native birds need native plants to survive. The plants need to be native to a particular habitat. A Colorado spruce is not native to southern Ontario.

In southern Ontario, there is a narrow strip of Carolinian forest zone, which stretches from Niagara Region and Windsor right down into the southern United States. People living in this unique ecological niche can grow a wide variety of plants, but this has a negative effect by enabling people to grow many exotic plants. Instead, people should increase biodiversity by using native species.

Here are a few examples of Carolinian trees and shrubs that would be much better for this area’s ecology: pawpaw (Asimina triloba), sassafras (Sassafras albidum), tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus), spicebush (Lindera benzoin), eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), witch-hazel, flowering dogwood and eastern redbud. There are many more.

Among the hundreds of native Carolinian Zone flowers are jewelweed (Impatiens pallida), trillium (Trillium grandifolium), Dutchman’s breeches, jack-in-the-pulpit, blazing star, wild bergamot, bee balm and black-eyed Susan. Many, like the wildlife that depend on them, are endangered. (Be careful planting some in an area frequented by pets, because some are toxic.)

Check with a local conservation organization for names of plants for specific ecological zones. You will be surprised by the variety of plants available.

Another way to help is by being very careful with the use of chemicals on your farm, lawn or garden, especially herbicides and insecticides. Look for natural controls whenever possible to avoid poisoning birds.

You can help by making your town or municipality aware of the importance of creating natural habitat suitable to your area. When new plantings are planned in municipal areas and parks, suggest that native plants be used instead of exotics. You can even ask your Town Council to require developers to use native trees for landscaping when they build new houses. Ask your local newspaper to do a story about the need to use native flowers, shrubs and trees to give songbirds a place to live and raise their nestlings.

If a neighbourhood works together to replace imported species with native species, one tiny habitat can become a larger one. If an entire town pledges to plant only native trees and shrubs when putting in new landscaping and parks, that habitat grows bigger. If a region or county makes an effort, there will be a continuous corridor of native habitat that will be a rest area for migrants and large enough to support a breeding population for many songbirds.

That’s a lot of “ifs”, but here’s another one. If it isn't done soon, the songbirds so familiar to previous generations will not be there for the next one.

Want to learn more about how songbird populations are plummeting and how to help in the recovery effort? Here are some books you might enjoy.