Catio

If you like your cats and you like wildlife, do them both a favor and keep your cats inside.  Cats live longer, healthier lives as indoor cats, and wildlife and your neighbor’s vegetable beds benefit from not having your cats roaming the neighborhood.  Study after study demonstrates not only the adverse effect that house cats have on wildlife (from song birds to the endangered Florida panther), but how far your seemingly lazy, well-fed little friend actually travels.  Also, study after study finds how much shorter cats lives are when they are allowed to roam. 

Cats are curious and like to look outside, and watch birds, people, leaves, whatever, and we try to provide them with ways of doing just that.  One minor thing I did was add a window to one of our storm doors, so they can look out when the door is closed.  

Chester is dissatisfied with just a window.

They use the window a lot, but they also would like to spend more time enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the garden.  

The window looks both ways and is effective for not just cats, but chickens and Chihuahuas.

Winston gets supervised time in the garden (the only one of our cats that does), but it is seldom and I know he likes to feel the wind in his hair, so that lead to my recent project- a Catio (“cat” + “patio” = awesome).  

From left to right, Winston, Chester and Gary investigating their new Catio.

I first learned about a Catio a few years ago from an announcement for a Catio Tour in Portland.  I was intrigued.  The fifth annual tour is scheduled for September 9.

This was a fun project and one that I could get all the materials from Home ReSource (using reused and repurposed materials is one of my passions).  This Catio is made from 3 wood frame window screens and these screens are common at Home ReSource.

These window screens sell for about $3 each and they are a common byproduct of people upgrading their windows in Missoula.  They were really common on the vast amount of homes built here between the 1910’s and the 50’s.  It is nice to find a use for a common thing like these (and hollow core doors, but that is another issue).  

The rest of the Catio is constructed from 2x stock reclaimed from homes), plywood from shipping crates, reused lag bolts, screws, and the brackets (above) are re-purposed fence posts.   

I also got laminate flooring, roofing felt, flashing, drip edge, roofing nails, wood screws, and carpet remnants for the Catio furniture (the scratching post), 

In all this project cost about $35.

It is not totally complete, I plan to add a shelf (a second floor) for the cats to lounge, but I wanted to see how that enjoy and use the current space. 

One of the nice things about this project is that it is portable.  Ultimately, we plan to install French doors in place of this window.  When we get around to that project (or “if”), we can move this to another window.  

the Catio installed from our bedroom window

This will allow our cats some time to spend outside but protects them, and protects our wildlife visitors from them. 

Bird list

Although I’ve been spending a lot of time posting on this blog about birds, and spending time in the garden watching birds, it has been our new chickens. 

However, after a social at our garden, I was reminded it was time to update my garden bird list. After some investigating, I realized the bird list on my blog had become woefully out dated (and I realized I was not the Montana "Chicken" Gardener, but the Montana "Wildlife" Gardener). I hadn’t formally updated the bird list on my blog since about 2009. 

Despite that I spend a lot of my time at work building, maintaining, accessing and editing databases, evidently my bird list is not in one! So, after some copy and pasting, and tediously searching my blog, I have revised my bird list. And here it is.

For those interested in exclusively the number, that number is 71.

Some details about my bird list, this list probably under-represents some species (like flycatchers- I don’t even really try with those!), and I only count birds that use the garden. That is, I don’t count fly-over’s, or even birds I can see from my yard- they have to be doing something like scratching on the ground, gleaning insects from leaves, bathing, nesting, eating one another, etc… To me flyovers are just happenstance- they do not reflect what I am trying to accomplish in the garden, that is, to create habitat for a variety of wildlife using plants native to the Missoula area.

I was struck by several things after reviewing the list.

1. Apparently I need to spend some time reading my own blog. This year I remarked that the vesper sparrow as a new arrival in the garden- they same way I made that proclamation in 2010. 
2. Birds that were once annual common like common redpoll and pine siskin in the winter, I haven’t seen in 10 years. 
3. A lot of common, local birds aren’t in the garden, and some uncommon local birds are. 
4. If I counted fly-over’s, I would have a lot more birds on my list (bald eagles, red tailed hawks, osprey, great blue heron, turkey vultures, red tailed hawks, Canada geese, canvasbacks, blue winged teal, mallards, California gulls, etc…) regularly fly overhead. Even rock doves. 
5. I grudgingly acknowledged the trash birds- the one’s I try to keep out; house sparrows, Eurasian collard doves, and European starlings in this list

In all, it is pretty cool to see this list. I can remember almost every one of these species, and I am really excited about attracting them to our little garden on 8th Street. And it all comes down to the fact that birds eat insects, and insects need our native plants.

A lot going on in the garden...

Spring is such an exciting and ever changing time in the garden.  This year is no exception.

New birds are arriving daily, others are nesting, including red breasted nuthatches, northern flickers and black capped chickadees.  All the nest boxes have cameras, and as the action heats up I will stream live video form each (now we are streaming from inside the nuthatch box http://www.ustream.tv/channel/red-breasted-nuthatch).

Just yesterday, 3 nuthatches hatched.  Here is a short video of them getting one of their first meals.

And of course, I have been busy with garden projects.  Here are some photos of what is happening now and some updates on projects...

Featured prominantly on the wall of my shop- I keep a list to remind me of the projects I want to complete.  

This floor grate was an early one on the list (I made it this winter from old wrenches) and replaces a dilapdated, temporary wood grate I made several years ago.  Beneath the grate is our compost furnace.

The greenhouse is really filling up.  

And so is my little nursery.

I have been growing these sedum (Sedum lanceolatum)  for a green roof on the chicken coop I will be building...

 

The coop will occupy this space- the corner raised bed in the vegetable garden that gets too much shade to be really productive.

In the meantime, these shovel chickens enjoy the space.

In what has become a rite of spring, we moved our composter.  This change was set into motion by our new back gate, and fence rearrangement, that was prompted by storing our camper in the garden (click here for my wife's blog about our camper- a project in itself)

It fits right in. 

My plan is to build a pergola over it.  On the list.

 New garden furniture has been on the list for some time. And this winter I made a lot of progress. 

 Several new shovel chairs and benches replaces our dilapidated bent willow chairs.

 Even the birds got new furniture- a new bird bath to match the chairs and gate.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Spring is nearly here and people are thinking about their gardens.  This spring and summer I have a few speaking engagements across the state.

The first one (pictured above), is sponsored by the Calypso Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society and University of Montana Western's School of Outreach.  I have had the pleasure of speaking to this group in past years and I had a wonderful time with the very interested and engaged crowd.  RSVP soon- space is limited and it typically fills up.  Contact outreach@umwestern.edu to register or for more information.

Date:  April 6
Location: Beautiful Divide, MT at the Grange Hall
Topic:  Insects in the Native Garden

Next on the list is a little more vague- I'll be doing a presentation with the Montana BOW (Becoming and Outdoor Woman) program (a program I am a huge fan of), and we are thinking of central or north-central Montana- tentatively in Lewistown or Malta, sometime between May 1 and May 15.  As you can see, there are still some details to work out.  Contact Liz Lodman for more information (or to lobby for a location!).

The next presentation is a combination presentation and field trip to our garden.  This one is also part of the BOW program, and is part of summer BOW.  Summer BOW is a wonderful experience, if you have ever thought about learning to fish, shoot, hunt, identify birds, navigate in the woods, or learn about native plan gardening (!), and you are a woman, consider taking this workshop.  Montana BOW is such a fantastic program and I really enjoy participating any time I an invited.
Sign up soon- summer BOW fills up quickly!  Contact Liz Lodman for more information.
Date:  Aug 2-4 (my presentation and field trip is Aug 3)
Location:  Lubrecht Forest, Greenough, MT

Hope to see you at one of these presentations!
Think gardening.

Our Garden on the Evening News

We are excited to have our garden featured on this week's Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' Outdoor Report. These brief videos are weekly news reports about Montana's great outdoors. This segment is a little different than most, since it is about backyard gardening, but we think Winston Greely did a great job making the connection between your landscape and nature. We thank him for putting together a great video introducing people to the concept of using native plants to create wildlife habitat in their own yards.

Backyard Birding, Bird Nesting and Garden Update

Do you ever take your laptop out to the back porch and use it to call in a ruby crowned kinglet, just to piss him off?  I do.

Anyway, I thought I’d take a moment to provide an update of what’s going on the in the garden.  It is a really busy time now- lots of stuff happening in the backyard (and elsewhere in life).  Spring is really here and birds are coming and going, plants are growing and flowering, and things are changing all around.


Garden update
Every year is different in the garden and that is what often makes it so much fun and interesting.  This year is shaping up to be another good year for arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata)  in the garden (the last time I proclaimed this was in 2009, ironically on almost the same date – May 15).  By the way, 2010 sucked for balsamroot in our yard.  The exciting thing is so many of the volunteer balsamroots are still going strong, and in probably only 4 years our front yard will be awash in them (just as I predicted in 2009). 

2015, baby- lots of balsamroot.  Check back.

The other good news is that this year, volunteers from another one of our long-lived, slow to flower, plants, the silky lupine (Lupinus sericeus), is flowering!  This is the first time that has happened.  It takes about 5 years to flower and my wife started the originals from seeds in 2000.  So, a mere 11 years later we have flowers from the second generation.  This whole feat is probably worthy of a dedicated post (maybe I’ll try to convince her to write a guest spot).


Looking back on the pictures and the post about balsamroot in our garden from 2009, it shows how everything in the garden is on the same pace this year.  We had a slow spring, but now it seems like everything is suddenly caught up.

Speaking of getting caught up, I recently revisited my list of garden projects for 2011, and I am making some progress, and I’ve even added a few more projects.  The garden is never done, which is a good thing when you like to garden.

• I planted some mountain ash (Sorbus scopulina) in the decadent quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) stand.
• I rearranged some plants in the front prairie, including getting rid of a green rabbit brush (Ericameria viscidiflora) and added some wood’s rose (Rosa woodsii), wax currant (Ribes cereum) and shrubby cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa- by the way, when was the genus changed?) close to the house.
• I made a "cut-off" trail in front of the onion bed. The area near the grill shed is kind of a congested area in the garden and by adding this new trail/ path, people will be able to flow better.
• While I was at it making new trails and installing urbanite, I moved our concrete path 3’ to the north to make the bed larger and for traffic to flow better.  I am really happy how this turned out, and with all these projects, when things settle down, I’ll devote some time to individual posts.

Flax management

My motto with blue flax (Linum lewisii) is “a little goes a long way”.  Sure, it is aggressive, but it is beautiful, and the blooms last for 6 weeks or more.  It is a great accent plant in the garden to provide almost electric blue flashes of color.  But too much flax looks really weedy.  So, I actively manage it in the garden.  My plan usually involves removing older individuals- they get woody, too big, and they produce a lot of seeds.  In the wild, flax you see are typically about 3 stems or so, and, to me flax this size these look like they are appropriate in the garden.  I usually wait until after a rain, and pull them out by their taproot. Plants I get all the roots out of I save for friends (or enemies- a gardeners joke!), and the other ones I compost (though they are very slow to breakdown) or put on the brush pile.

This bucket of flax is heading to Kathy at Blackfoot Native Plants Nursery, who is a friend, I assure you.  She asked for them. I swear.

Bird Nesting Update

• Nuthatches
• They laid their eggs around May 4, so the eggs should hatch around… May 18^th- today!  I need to spend sometime this evening loitering around the box.   
• Chickadee
• The chickadees have 8 eggs in their box, and hatching should be around May 24 (incubation is around 12 days).   You can always look into their box and see what’s happening on the nest box camera.
• Flicker
• The flickers have been around and have excavated the box.  They also excavated two holes in my neighbor’s silver maple.  They tried this last year, and I was so happy for them, but ultimately they got displaced by squirrels and nested in our backyard nest box.   I suspect they will nest here again.

Backyard Birding
The backyard birding has been really good this year. Species are coming and going on their way north, and to nest.  White crowned sparrows and Townsend’s solitaires in particular have spent a lot of time in the garden this year.  Also, Varied thrushes, Chipping sparrows, Bohemian waxwings, Song sparrows, Ruby crowned kinglets (including the angry little guy at the top of this post) and other species arrived at the same time as past years; hummingbirds seem a little farther behind.  There have been reports of hummingbirds from all over town over the last week or more, so they are here, and any day they’ll come to our garden.

Locally, the feeling is that things are behind schedule- owing to the cool spring, but the fact that species arrivals are in sync with past years speaks to the larger spatial scale at which they travel and interact with the landscape as a whole.  It is like the difference between weather and climate. Interestingly, yellow warblers arrived in our garden three weeks ahead of past years.

Looking back on the pictures and the blog post on balsamroot from 2009, I referenced earlier, it shows how everything in the garden is on the same pace as last year.  So the gist is, a lot is going on and it is just about the same as it always is.  Or something like that.

Nuthatch and chickadee nesting update

The red-breasted nuthatches completed their nest, and apparently have begun incubating eggs.  Today the female remained in the nest and the male visited regularly to feed her.  He also spent quite a bit of time smearing sap around the entrance to the nest (shown above). This behavior is characteristic of the red-breasted nuthatch, but several nuthatch species perform tasks that help keep their nest free of pests and parasites.  For example, white-breasted nuthatches with scrape the outside of their hole with bad smelling insects to dissuade intruders. 

The female will incubate the eggs for two weeks, so around May 18th the young should hatch.

This year we installed a camera on the outside of the nuthatch box, and we will stream it when things get interesting.  Next year, we'll probably move that camera inside their nest box.  

The chickadees are just about done with their nest construction and similar to the past, it is made mostly of squirrel fur, and some antelope hair.  The female has been roosting in the nest box for the last couple of nights, and I suspect she will begin laying eggs anytime now (if she has not already).  Unlike the nuthatches, we have a live streaming camera inside the nest box- click here to see what is going in inside 24/7.

Montana Nursery and Landscape Association Presenation

Thank you all that were at my talk, Conservation Gardening: Landscaping with Montana native plants for Montana native wildlife, at the Montana Nursery and Landscape Association's Green Expo. I hope my presentation on using native plants for wildlife was useful and inspiring. Here is a link to download my presentation from today.

Backyard birding: a year in review

Having wildlife in my backyard is one the greatest rewards from native plant gardening. One easily quantifiable indicator, of the "success" of our garden is the number and diversity of species of birds that use our yard and variety of uses they have for our garden.

Although it is obviously difficult to ascribe the abundance and diversity of birds using our yard to native plant landscaping (their are no controls or replicates in this study), I look back to our previous home just five blocks away- a house we rented, and did not landscape. There we were only able to attract a few species; house sparrows, pigeons, house finches and European starlings. Our current home is in the same neighborhood, same ecotype, same proximity to natural areas, etc...but we have landscaped our yard with wildlife in mind.

Compared to the past few years, we changed little in our garden in 2009, the exception from a backyard birding standpoint is that we have been feeding less and less (click here for my feelings on this). We have cut back and stopped feeding black sunflower seeds- they tended to draw in undesirable species like house finches and squirrels (read more about squirrels here), and instead the only feed we provide is suet (click here for our conventional and unconventional feeders) and hummingbird feeders seasonally.

Here are a few highlights from 2009:

• 40 species of birds used our yard this year. In total we have had about 60 species use the yard over the last 10 years (here is the list). Some exceptions this year were red polls (haven’t seen them in a while, and not since a "cold" (read: normal) winter, blue jays (don’t know why), and many species of warblers (though I might have missed them between building our greenhouse and training for a couple of marathons).
• American robins were the first to return (Feb. 16) and the mountain chickadee (Dec. 14) was the most recent arrival.
• One new species to our backyard bird list- the Brown creeper. Though not an uncommon bird, we had never had one in our yard before.
• Black capped chickadees had two clutches. Though this happens every year, I still love it.
• Northern flickers had a clutch. The noteworthy thing about that this year was the the male was a hybrid of two morphs and the female disappeared early on, leaving him to raise the nestlings.

Here is the list of birds in 2009:

Year-round or resident bird species
American Crow
Black-billed Magpie
Black-capped Chickadee
Cedar Waxwing
Dark-eyed Junco* (*fall-spring resident)
Downy Woodpecker
House Finch
Northern Flicker
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Sharp-shinned Hawk
2009 bird arrivals to our garden
Mountain chickadee December 12
Pine siskin October 4
White crowned sparrow October 3
Yellow rumped warbler October 3
Dark eyed junco October 3
House wren August 22
Olive-sided Flycatcher August 16
Hairy Woodpecker August 1
Northern Oriole May 28
Warbling Vireo May 27
Western Wood Pewee May 24
Yellow Warbler May 24
Wilson's Warbler May 23
Western Tanager May 21
American Goldfinch May 20
Gray Catbird May 20
Chipping sparrow May 18
Lincoln's sparrow May 16
Dusky flycatcher May 14
Black-chinned hummingbird May 12
Rufous hummingbird May 10
Ruby crowned kinglet May 2
Calliope hummingbird May 2
Golden crowned kinglet April 29
Bohemian Waxwing March 27
Varied Thrush March 26
Song Sparrow March 22
Brown Creeper March 16
Mourning Dove Feb. 21
American Robin Feb. 16

winter in the wildlife garden

It is cold and getting colder. Temps are predicted to be around -20 degrees F (not including wind) and highs are forecasted to be in the low single digits for the next few days. And, on top of that, there is the wind. It is below zero now, and it is only getting colder. This is an important time to think about wildlife in the garden.

While working in my woodworking shop yesterday (where it was very warm, by the way), I spent a lot of time watching birds and what they were up to in the garden. It was a lot of fun and gratifying to see the wildlife garden in action. I even braved the cold and -20 degree wind-chill to take some pictures (maybe “brave” is too strong of a word).

Winter roosts
The northern flicker in the photo above has been spending the night in the nest box to escape the cold. This is the same male that excavated the nest box this past spring and raised a clutch in our yard (he has a distinguishable nape crest). Although it is important to clean and fill nest boxes annually, especially ones that you fill with nesting material (see here for information), it is important to leave these boxes empty for the winter and not refill them until February.

Brush piles, bird nesting boxes, snags and rock piles are such important features for a variety of wildlife species in the garden. These elements allow birds and other animals to escape conditions that would otherwise be inhospitable and unavailable in a "clean" yard- that is a yard with only a manicured lawn and some nicely pruned specimen trees.

Feeding
We don't feed very much, even in the winter by most standards (click here for more information). Our primary feeder is our garden- the seeds, berries, insects and others results of our garden design. For example, downy woodpeckers are spending a lot of time drilling our aspens looking for borers (click here for the fascinating, never ending borer story), and flickers are emboldened by the cold to excavate our anthill in search of cold weary (and defenseless) ant. These are the most reliable and most diverse feeders we have.

Pictured above is a song sparrow sitting on one of our fallen snags eating seeds from an aster. We do feed suet in the winter (click here for directions to build an easy one), and black sunflower seeds though not the latter for some time. Just having suet available for winter birds, seems to attract the fewest pest species.

Knowing what species are likely to visit your feeders is important in determining what to set out as food. Generic “bird food” usually end s up unused or wasted, or attracted non-native or pest species (like eastern squirrel species, European starling, house sparrows or house finches). In our yard, the primary winter birds include black capped chickadees, red breasted nuthatches, northern flickers, dark eyed juncos, downy woodpeckers, and others.

One unconventional feeder that is really effective is a natural suet feeder. Though this might look a little odd to some, a deer, elk or antelope carcass is just what lots of birds love, including chickadees, nuthatches and magpies. This is what store-bought, conventional suet feeders try to imitate. After butchering game, I will usually hang a ribcage in the backyard for birds to peck at and feed on. Yesterday as I watched, the chickadees and nuthatches never went to a typical suet feeder, but rather spent all their time feeding on the deer ribcage. Consider hanging your ribcage for the birds, or if you don’t hunt, and you are interested in adding a conversation piece/ feeder to your yard, stop by a wild game butcher, I am sure they will give you a ribcage.

8th Street Pocket Park

The 8th Street Pocket Park is a small neighborhood park that uses native plants and landscaping to provide education and outreach to neighbors and students that my wife and I have been working on for the last couple of years. Because of its small size and out of the way location, this little piece of ground was neglected, growing only knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) and dog waste (no Latin binomial necessary). Located between an irrigation ditch and the intersection of 8th and Grant streets, the entire "park" was located in the city's right of way. A few neighbors saw an opportunity to work together and develop a wildflower garden, providing beauty and benefits to the nearby school and surrounding neighborhood.

Our goal was to build and maintain this pocket park as a little piece of wild Montana on the corner of 8th and Grant, by using plants native to the Missoula valley and to provide education & outreach to neighbors and students and a little wildlife habitat in our neighborhood. Our hope was that this park will be enjoyed by passersby, and provide a chance to stop and learn about native plants, and wildlife. To that end we developed and installed interpretive signs (see below), paths to interact and view the landscaping and installed benches to help turn this once weed patch into a destination.

In 2008, we completed the south portion (pictured in this post)of the pocket park (with significant help from a $2,000ish neighborhood grant) and we obtained a grant to complete the park this year by expanding the project by landscaping the east portion of the park. We also hope to continue the strong partnerships and neighborhood cooperation that made the first phase so successful.

The aspect of this project I was most concerned about was that as a public park, I wanted the plants to thrive, for weeding to be minimal, and for it to be a good example of native plant landscaping. My hope was that this would give people ideas for this type of landscaping in their own yards, so as a demonstration garden, this needed to look good. To that end, site preparation was essential, and we spent a lot of time on this.

The first step involved getting rid of noxious weeds through hand-pulling and herbicide treatments. The next step involved using a sod cutter to remove the "grass" (read: dog poop, quack grass, lawn, and dandelions). We installed lawn edging around the perimeter (see photo below), then removed all the sod, waited a few weeks, dug out or pulled everything that germinated, repeated this step again, brought in screened top soil, and compost mix to form hills, planted the area and covered it all with 6" of shredded cedar bark mulch.

From the time it was planted until the end of the growing season, we watered the little park every other day heavily. Since October 2008, we have not irrigated it, and have had only one weeding night. The plants have thrived and I think this has been a great public garden example.

Below part of the park is shown, August 2008, after the area was planted.
Below is a picture of the same area in August 2009, after just one year of growth.

Below is just one of several interpretive signs...Again, the same location one year later.This is one of the only "before" pictures we have. Again, you can never take too many pictures before you begin a project- I never take enough (see my lament here). Below, volunteers are installing lawn edging and laying out the split rail cedar fence, in spring 2008. This picture was taken after we removed noxious weeds, so it actually looks like a lawn here- seeing the area as a lawn, in itself, was a lot of work and represented a lot of progress.This picture is taken roughly the same location in early spring 2009, and if you look closely you can see a black-capped chickadee on the nest box. This spring a pair excavated this box and raised a clutch- success!Below is roughly the same location in August 2009- plants thrived, despite no irrigation in 2009.
Since education and outreach were our primary goals of this project, we installed several interpretive signs in this little park. These signs provide information about the history of the park, the partnerships, as well as natural history of the area and specifically about native plants and wildlife found in the park. Below are examples of two of the six interpretive signs.
Also pictured above is a National Wildlife Federation wildlife habitat sign. This park is certified as Backyard Wildlife Habitat because it incorporates the following elements: food, water, cover, places to raise young, sustainable gardening practices, native plants.

Our neighborhood is deficient in parks and open spaces. Landscaping this site transformed existing public space from an unusable state into an attractive pocket park. While the final product of this effort meets a community need (more park space), the process of creating the native plant landscape also meets community needs.

My wife has been working with the local elementary school through the Flagship Program, an after school program for neighborhood children, and has lead field trips for dozens of children to this little garden. She has gone to classrooms to teach kids about native plants, has had them grow plants that we later transplanted to the park, and has had children help pant and weed this park for the last couple of years .

This project was also shared goal of the Montana Native Plant Society and the University of Montana's natural areas integrated plant management program (my wife's program) to provide education and outreach about native plants and their conservation. Despite the small size of this park, it has addressed multiple community needs, and it is a long way from its former state of knapweed, dog waste, and neglect.