If you want to feed the birds, start by feeding the caterpillars! Most songbirds will not thrive or choose to nest in habitats devoid of caterpillars. The plants best suited to support a diversity of caterpillars are native plants, but not just any natives. Just fourteen percent of native plants support ninety percent of caterpillar biomass; these are known as the keystone plants. 

Many of us enjoy birds, but we may be inadvertently hanging “No vacancy” signs over our gardens. Research by entomologist Doug Tallamy shows that to raise their young, birds need caterpillars – lots of them. Songbirds as little as chickadees require some six to nine thousand caterpillars to raise a brood of nestlings. In fact, ninety-six percent of terrestrial songbirds rely on caterpillars to feed their babies. The prevalence of these small, soft-bodied, protein-rich larvae affects where the birds choose to nest and how big a territory they need to defend.

Fortunately, we have a good jump on knowing what these vital keystone species are. The information presented below, and the identification of keystone plant genera is based on the research of Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware, author of Nature's Best Hope.  

Here is a list of resources/databases to help you select keystone plants to support caterpillars and birds in our area: 

• Calscape - Restore Nature One Garden at a Time. Enter the city where you live to see a list of native plants to choose from. You will find lots of information about each plant: images, descriptions, growth habits, and the number and types of butterflies and moths supported to name a few. (The numbers of moths and butterflies hosted indicated in the plant list below are from this search tool.) 
   
• Audubon - Native Plants, Bring more birds to your home with native plants. Enter your zip code to see plants suited to your area and the birds they will support.
   
• National Wildlife Federation, Native Plant Finder Select from a list of host plants for butterflies and moths. Plants are ranked by the number of caterpillars hosted. 

Using the databases above, we have put together a list of native plants that do well in our area and support butterflies and moths, which provide caterpillars to feed the birds. They all support numerous caterpillar species in our area. Numbers in parentheses indicate the probable number of caterpillar species supported.

 Shrubs: Willows (211), Bitter Cherry (156), Ceanothus (85), Currants and gooseberries (85), Huckleberries (65), Wild Roses (66), Lupines (55), Manzanitas (56)  

 Perennials: Thimbleberry (70), Cow's Clover (67), Goldenrods (53), Beach Strawberry (32), Coast Buckwheat (31) 

 Annuals: Native Clovers (70), Miniature Lupine (54)  

For more detailed information on these and other native plant species options for your growing conditions, visit Calscape - Restore Nature One Garden at a Time 

If you would like to visit a local native garden, the North Coast CNPS, California Native Plant Society, has an extensive list of local native gardens from Trinidad to Ferndale.  

 

Protecting The Birds That Visit Your Garden 

OK! You've planted your keystone species, the caterpillars are on their way, and our feathered friends will follow. Yay!!  But not surprisingly, the birds, like us, need more than just food. Here are a few steps to help you turn your avian restaurant into a home.

Reduce or eliminate pesticide use: Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies, such as proper plant selection, can help gardeners adopt more sustainable landscape practices. 

Provide Fresh Water: Place a birdbath in the landscape and be sure to keep it clean. If you are really ambitious, a small fountain with protective plants around it will attract the birds! 

Add a nest box (birdhouse) - Nest boxes can provide valuable homes for many birds  For more information about nest box design and placement for specific birds visit https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/.   

Keep cats indoors: Free-roaming cats kill 2-3 billion birds yearly. If you want your cat to experience the outdoors, please consider building an enclosed cat patio (catio.)  

Prevent window strikes: Up to a billion birds are killed every year from collisions with windows. The site below has ideas on how to prevent these accidents. 

 

Layer your yard's habitat: 

• If you have space, consider adding large shrubs or small trees such as Bitter cherry (156), Toyon (4), Coffeeberry (23), Cascara Sagrada (27), Red Alder (70), or Vine Maple (55). These trees/shrubs not only support caterpillars but can also provide fruit and nuts, nest cavities, and perches. 
• Smaller shrubs, in addition to perennials and annuals, can provide cover and seeds for birds. 
• Leave some decayed leaves, twigs, and other plant debris on the ground to provide homes for invertebrates that birds eat, including the pupae of most moth caterpillars. 

Leave the seeds: Do not deadhead seedheads; they can be an important food source during fall and winter. Consider planting native plants such as Woolly Sunflower (Eriophyllum lanatum), California Aster (Corethrogyne filaginifolia), and Deergrass (Muhlenbergia rigens). These plants produce a profusion of seeds that attract and support seedeaters, such as finches and sparrows. 

Especially for hummingbirds:In addition to soft-bodied insects and larvae, hummingbirds can feed on nectar from most any flowering shrub, tree, vine, perennial, or annual. They are especially attracted to native species with orange, pink, and red tubular flowers, such as Humboldt County Fuchsia (Epilobium septentrionale) and Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea). Manzanitas, gooseberries, and currants are important for caterpillars and can also supply nectar in the colder months. 

So, what are you waiting for? Now that spring planting is near, it is time to flip that “No Vacancy” sign to “Birds are Welcome!”  

For more information related to protecting birds visit: 

University of California, Sustainable Landscaping in California https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8504.pdf 

Audubon, How to Clean a Birdbath — Attracting Birds to Your Yard | Audubon https://www.audubon.org/news/why-you-should-keep-your-birdbath-clean 

NestWatch, All About Birdhouses https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/ 

American Bird Conservancy, Cats and Birds https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ 

American Bird Conservancy, Solutions for Pet Cats, Catios and Outdoor Enclosures https://abcbirds.org/catio-solutions-cats/ 

Cornell Lab, All About the Birds, Why Birds Hit Windows – And How You Can Help Prevent It https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/why-birds-hit-windows-and-how-you-can-help-prevent-it/# 

 

A monarch butterfly caterpillar goes through five stages or instars before it J's and becomes a jade-green chrysalis.

Scientists estimate that only 10 percent of the eggs and 'cats survive to adulthood.

They don't "survive" at all in California classrooms.

California classrooms used to showcase the metamorphosis of the monarch--from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to adult-- but no more. If you live in California, you're not allowed to collect or rear monarchs without a scientific permit. And scientific permits are difficult to obtain.

According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:  "A Scientific Collecting Permit (SCP) is required to handle wild monarchs in California including for educational purposes. It is unlawful to collect, remove from the wild and/or captively rear monarchs in California without an SCP, per California Code of Regulations (CCR), Title 14, section 650.

Admire them in the wild, but legally, you can't collect or rear them. 

As a child growing up in the San Jose area,  entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, "raised and released many, many dozens of monarchs, as most empty lots were filled with vast stands of narrow-leaf milkweed, and we could easily gather caterpillars and keep them fed and healthy until they matured. This was an extraordinary thing to be able to watch--the final instar of the larva molting to change to the beautiful chrysalis and then seeing the butterfly develop within the chrysalis and hatch. We would hold it on our finger as the wings expanded and, finally, the butterfly flew away."

“A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes,” writes evolutionary biologist Noah Whiteman, author of the newly published book, Most Delicious Poison: the Story of Nature's Toxins—from Spices to Vices (Little, Brown Spark).

Whiteman, UC Berkeley professor of genetics, genomics, evolution and development, and director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, writes with a passion bestowed on him by his late father, a naturalist. “....he was a used car salesman, and later, a furniture salesman, but in his heart, he was a naturalist.” 

The 336-page book is captivating, transparent, and fascinating--an “I-didn't-know-that-tell-me-more!” read. 

Take monarchs. 

Whiteman recalls a scene from his childhood. He and his father are in a patch of milkweed. His father tears a leaf in half. As "white latex" drips from the leaf, his father tells him: "That's why they call it milkweed. Don't ever eat it. Heart poisons are in that sap.” 

The toxins are terpenoids called cardiac glycosides. “One of the principal toxins in the common milkweeds that my dad and I encountered is aspecioside,” Whiteman wrote. "The monarchs obtained these heart poisons during their caterpillar stage. But the caterpillars did something even more extraordinary—they concentrated the toxin to levels even high than those found in the milkweed itself.”

“The butterflies were poisonous, my dad explained, because as caterpillars, they had eaten toxins from the milkweed leaves. The insects then stored the toxins in their bodies all the way through metamorphosis, from a zebra-striped caterpillar to a chrysalis encircled at the top by a golden diadem, to the familiar brightly colored butterfly.” 

Whiteman points out that monarch butterflies "evolved to become brightly colored to warn predatory birds and other predators of the bitter and emetic cardiac glycosides within." When a bird eats a monarch, it vomits, associating "the butterfly with danger, just as Pavlov's dogs learned to associate the ring of a bell with food.” 

That led Whiteman to the question “How do animals that sequester these toxins, as the monarch does, resist them?” 

Whiteman researched cardiac glycosides with evolutionary ecologist Anurag Agrawal of Cornell University, who received his doctorate in population biology in 1999 from UC Davis, studying with major professor Richard "Rick" Karban,  Department of Entomology and Nematology.

You'll have to read Chapter 4, "Dogbane and Digitalis," to learn what Whiteman, Agrawal and their colleagues discovered. 

All 13 chapters of “Most Delicious Poison” are deliciously intriguing and inviting, from “Deadly Daisies,” “Hijacked Hormones,” “Caffeine and Nicotine” to “Devil's Breath and Silent Death” to “Opicoid Overloads” to “The Spice of Life.” And more.

His father's death in 2017 from a substance use disorder (alcohol) pushed him to write the book. "His long struggle with nature's toxins came to a head just as my collaborators and I uncovered how the monarch butterfly caterpillar resists the deadly toxins made by the milkweed host plant.” 

Toxins are why the monarch can migrate thousands of miles to overwintering spots without getting eaten by predatory birds. 

Nature's chemicals are not a side show, as Whiteside emphasizes. They're "the main event."

(Editor's Note: The Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, displayed Whiteman's book at its Nov. 4th open house on monarchs. Whiteman plans to deliver a presentation on the UC Davis campus sometime next spring.) 

Did you celebrate National Cat Day on Oct. 29?

We haven't had a cat since our 16-year-old tuxedo, Xena the Warrior Princess crossed the Rainbow Bridge in March of 2016. She sported a butterflylike marking on her left leg.

Monarch butterflies fascinated her. They brought out "the princess" instead of "the warrior" in her.

If you don't have a cat or a feline pollinator partner, plant milkweed and you'll get another kind of 'cat, the larvae of monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus. 

Today we have several 'cats on our tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, in our Vacaville garden. None this year on our narrowleafed milkweed, A. fascicularis; showy milkweed, A. speciosa; or butterfly weed, A. tuberosa.

If you want to learn more about monarchs, their life cycle,  milkweed and other related topics, attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Saturday, Nov. 4 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis. The theme is "Monarchs" and scientists will be there to answer your questions.

The event is free and family friendly and a great opportunity to learn more about D. plexippus.

The scientists will include:

• UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, who has studied butterfly populations in central California since 1972 and maintains a research website, Art's Butterfly World.
  
  
• UC Davis emeritus professor Hugh Dingle, a worldwide authority on animal migration, including monarchs.  He is the author of Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move (Oxford University Press), a sequel to the first edition published in 1996. See news story on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
  
  
• UC Davis professor Louie Yang, who does research on monarchs. Due to parental duties, he may be able to attend only the last part of the open house. See news story about his work.
  
  
• UC Davis professor Elizabeth Crone of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, formerly of Tufts University, who researches monarchs. See news story about the declining monarch population on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.

The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a living insect petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, among others), and a insect-themed gift shop. UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey has directed the Bohart Museum, founded in 1946, since 1990.