Birds and cactus on the move

On Christmas Day the Audubon Society turned out thousands of its members for the 122nd annual bird count.

The goal of the bird count is not only to calculate how many of which birds are where, but if there are any changes. Changes like non-appearance of certain birds which could mean that a bird species has moved to a new area or, in the worst case, become extinct.

While the results and post-count analyses of the 2021 Christmas Bird Count have not yet been finalized, results of previous years’ counts have.

And what past bird counts tell us is that almost all North American birds are under pressure by the changing climate to move northward. For example, in California the ranges of many bird species are now 200 miles north of their traditional habitats.

NOTE: There is a new international bird count in the works called the Great Backyard Bird Count. It will be held on February 18-21, 2022.

What does this have to do with hot gardens?

Depending upon how severe the changes are in your area, birds that formerly ate pesky or damaging insects may be long gone. New species may arrive in your neighborhood from further south, but they may have different diet needs. It may be that the newcomer birds are seed eaters or leaf-lovers like the Yellow Finch in this photo, rather than bug eaters.

For other birds the impact is more complex. As an example, take the Cactus Wren which makes its home in saguaros. In the Saguaro National Park, the saguaros are now “moving uphill”–growing at higher elevations on the hillsides. According to a SNP naturalist the saguaros will only grow within a specific elevation range and no higher. They are close to that maximum elevation now and their range has become much narrower. So as the older cactus die out at lower levels that means fewer homes for Cactus Wrens and less food for saguaro pollinators like the white wing dove and the long-tongued Mexican bat.

So what’s a hot gardener to do?

Well, I’m not going to recommend that you build a bat-house in your back yard. (And–yes–there is such a thing as a bat-house as you can see in the photo on the left taken at the Tucson Mission Garden.)

New Year’s Resolution No. 1: feeding the birds

But hanging a bird feeder, especially if you live in a winter-snow part of the desert, and keeping it stocked can help birds in your area. Mourning doves, like the ones shown at the top of this post, have moved northward and definitely need food help surviving over winter.

Resolution No. 2: plant a large shrub or two

While almost every environmental group is recommending planting large trees to shade the earth, I think water-wise shrubs--large ones like Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) in its shrub form or a fast-growing Photinia (Photinia x fraseri)–provide better nest habitat and shelter from predators for birds as well as adding cooling shade to your hot dry garden.

For whatever it is worth, Mourning Doves have made a home in a Mexican yellow oleander (Cascabela thevetia) in my back yard for years as you can see in the photo at the top of this post. I don’t recommend planting a Thevetia, however, because it is highly toxic to humans, but the Mourning Doves don’t seem to mind. And I love to wake up in the morning to their calls.

So make planting a bird-friendly shrub one of your New Year’s Resolutions.

Resolution No. 3: keep tabs on what’s happening

Set up a free gardening blog/journal online and post something daily to keep track of how your garden is changing as the climate changes.

What to post? To make it easy, keep it short. So how about…
– a single flower photo
– a sentence or two about what is new in your garden
– notes of dates you installed plants or planted seeds
– a picture of your Little Free Plant Stand
– a photo of children playing in the garden or
– snow covering everything

If posting daily is too much for you, post weekly.

You will have to pick a name for your online journal/blog and I’d recommend that you include your location in that name. For example: CatherinesLasVegasGarden or SamGardensinSydney.

And keep this in mind: this online gardening blog/journal is primarily for yourself to help keep track of changes caused by climate change, so don’t be concerned about having or building followers. That can end up taking all your gardening time and then some! Interested people will eventually find what you are posting and enjoy it. Free blogs are available at WordPress.com and other sites.