#64 - Jan 2023 - Garden Stuff - © Sandy Lang - slang@xtra.co.nz
GARDEN BIRDSJanuary/February: Mid-/late-summer. Do your last summer-veggie plantings. Get ideas from a garden centre. Hot days and our sandy soils dry fast. Deep watering doesn’t work on sand, so shallow water every two days (HCC doesn’t allow daily). Water mornings. Evening watering = wet leaves overnight = fungal disease. Bird friendly: Birds will visit your garden if it’s bird friendly. What makes for a bird-friendly habitat...? Plant natives. These are our native birds’ natural sources of food and shelter. But urban gardens aren’t large, so you can’t create much of a native forest. To enhance your garden’s bird habitat, make changes to better provide for bird •safety, •rests, roosts, nests, •water and •food. Safety – Keep cats in at night. But about 12 neighbours’ cats visit your garden (when you're not looking), so your own moggy is only about 8% of the problem. Trap rats. Don’t leave food around. Cover – High cover (trees) creates safe places to rest (day) and roost (night). Low cover creates good places for cats to lurk. Minimise low cover. Dense trees/shrubs/hedges create safe places for secret nests in spring and summer. Water – Eastbourne is on sand, so few puddles/creeks. Birds really need water, especially in summer. Install a shallow bird bath, 5+ metres from cat cover. Keep it topped up. Food – Install a feeder station 5+ metres from cat cover. Avoid bread, fat and seeds. NZ birds don’t eat these. But they do attract introduced N hemisphere birds, which outcompete our native birds for habitat. Our native birds eat fruits, nectar and insects. •Fruits (vitamins, minerals) e.g. a half apple. •Nectar (energy) e.g. a 1:8 sugar:water mix in a nectar feeder - not a saucer (wasps, faecal contamination, disease). Google nectar nest •Insects (energy+protein) Plant native trees/shrubs to attract insects. Also... Eco-pile: Make an ‘eco-pile’ - see www.mulchpile.org/43. This creates food and habitat for many small invertebrates – and these are good food for native birds. Disease: Feed stations and bird baths are ‘bird-busy’ places, so great for disease-exchange. So, keep them clean. Dependency: Regular supplementary feeding creates dependency. So, birds starve when you go on holiday. So, offer more consistent supplementary feeding in winter/early-spring (June to September) when food is very scarce. The rest of the year, when food is more plentiful, offer erratic supplementary feeding e.g. one week on, one week off, to minimise dependency.___________________________________
GARDEN BIRDSJanuary/February: Mid-/late-summer. Do your last summer-veggie plantings. Get ideas from a garden centre. Hot days and our sandy soils dry fast. Deep watering doesn’t work on sand, so shallow water every two days (HCC doesn’t allow daily). Water mornings. Evening watering = wet leaves overnight = fungal disease. Bird friendly: Birds will visit your garden if it’s bird friendly. What makes for a bird-friendly habitat...? Plant natives. These are our native birds’ natural sources of food and shelter. But urban gardens aren’t large, so you can’t create much of a native forest. To enhance your garden’s bird habitat, make changes to better provide for bird •safety, •rests, roosts, nests, •water and •food. Safety – Keep cats in at night. But about 12 neighbours’ cats visit your garden (when you're not looking), so your own moggy is only about 8% of the problem. Trap rats. Don’t leave food around. Cover – High cover (trees) creates safe places to rest (day) and roost (night). Low cover creates good places for cats to lurk. Minimise low cover. Dense trees/shrubs/hedges create safe places for secret nests in spring and summer. Water – Eastbourne is on sand, so few puddles/creeks. Birds really need water, especially in summer. Install a shallow bird bath, 5+ metres from cat cover. Keep it topped up. Food – Install a feeder station 5+ metres from cat cover. Avoid bread, fat and seeds. NZ birds don’t eat these. But they do attract introduced N hemisphere birds, which outcompete our native birds for habitat. Our native birds eat fruits, nectar and insects. •Fruits (vitamins, minerals) e.g. a half apple. •Nectar (energy) e.g. a 1:8 sugar:water mix in a nectar feeder - not a saucer (wasps, faecal contamination, disease). Google nectar nest •Insects (energy+protein) Plant native trees/shrubs to attract insects. Also... Eco-pile: Make an ‘eco-pile’ - see www.mulchpile.org/43. This creates food and habitat for many small invertebrates – and these are good food for native birds. Disease: Feed stations and bird baths are ‘bird-busy’ places, so great for disease-exchange. So, keep them clean. Dependency: Regular supplementary feeding creates dependency. So, birds starve when you go on holiday. So, offer more consistent supplementary feeding in winter/early-spring (June to September) when food is very scarce. The rest of the year, when food is more plentiful, offer erratic supplementary feeding e.g. one week on, one week off, to minimise dependency.___________________________________