This simple story explains three layers of the web of life, plants, insects and animals and their intricate and necessary interconnection. I am using the Black-capped Chickadee as an example of how these three layers work together because it is so well known in New England. This is but one example of how plants, insects and animals interact and pass on the sun’s energy. This energy we call food. First, some basic facts. Although chickadees eat a variety of food including seeds throughout the year, they, along with 96% of terrestrial birds in North America, rear their young on insects. Why insects? Insects have more protein in their bodies than any other species on our planet including the meat from animals. During the time the baby birds are in their nest they are extremely vulnerable. They need to grow quickly and fledge as soon as possible. For this to take place a huge amount of protein is necessary to spur growth. Thus Mother Nature has provided them with the best possible food to encourage quick growth – insects. The densest protein is found in caterpillars which is the larval stage of butterflies and moths. Although mother chickadees could feed their offspring any insect, it turns out that 95-100% of insects they hunt for are caterpillars. If you have already read Doug Tallamy’s and Richard Darke’s excellent book, ‘The Living Landscape’, you will be familiar with this example. Research has shown that chickadees feed their chicks an average of 390 to 570 caterpillars a day depending on the amount of chicks they have. If chicks are in the nest from 16 to 18 days before they fledge, that means it takes between 6,240 to 10,260 caterpillars to fledge a single clutch of chickadees! Chickadees are small birds weighing about a third of an ounce. What if you had a red- bellied woodpecker nest in your yard? Red-bellied woodpeckers weigh eight times more than chickadees. How many more caterpillars would be needed to fledge a clutch of red-bellied woodpeckers? The big question is, how and what can you do to get enough caterpillars living in your garden or your landscape to feed even one nest of chickadee chicks? The answer is to plant native perennials, shrubs and trees that are the host plants for caterpillars. Every butterfly and moth species has co-evolved with a specific native plant that acts as a host plant where it can lay its eggs. The best known example is the Monarch butterfly which can only lay its eggs on the milkweed plant. The monarch, over evolutionary time, has been able to figure out how to get past the noxious chemicals in the milkweed. All plants have chemicals that they manufacture in their leaves as a defense mechanism against being eaten by animals or insects. Insects are either herbivores, they eat plants, or predators, they eat other insects. Herbivores have evolved to get food from the sun by eating plants. Predatory insects get the sun’s energy from eating herbivores. Birds eat adult insects as well as eggs and caterpillars, thus getting their energy from the sun. Green plants play many necessary and remarkable roles for the healthy functioning of our planet. They are the only species on earth that have the pigment chlorophyll. This pigment allows plants to make their own food directly from the sun. We call this process photosynthesis. The plants then pass on food (energy) to all other living species on our planet in the web of life or the food chain. To answer the question of how to have nesting birds on your property, the answer is to plant as many native trees, bushes and perennials as you can. If you plant many different species of native plants you will attract many different species of native insects that depend on them for food. The more insects you have, the more birds you will attract. And perhaps, you may indeed have enough caterpillars to attract nesting birds. In future blogs, I will explain how to design and plant a butterfly garden and what native plants are needed to attract birds. Note: I want to thank Vicky for the inspiration of this blog story. Vicky is a former student who four years ago took my 5 week environmental gardening course that I teach annually for the Mass Audubon. A week before this past Christmas, I received a lovely card which included a deeply touching note inside explaining that the story I told in class of the connection of chickadees and caterpillars “moved (her) so much that (she) became better educated about native plants and pollinators and gardening for wildlife”. She went on to become a N.H. Natural Resources Steward and co-founded an organization in N. H. that encourages people to grow pollinator gardens. She is now ”inspiring others to bring nature home”. Vicky’s story is a great example of how when you plant seeds (literally or figuratively as in ideas) you never know how they will grow and what unexpected beauty and surprises they will bring. Interesting Facts: The Black capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a passerine. Passerine birds are sometimes known as perching or song birds. They are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes, three pointing forward and one back which facilitates perching. It is a small, non-migratory North American bird that lives in deciduous and mixed forests and residential neighborhoods. It is the State bird of both Massachusetts and Maine. It can adapt to our winter climate by lowering its body temperature during long cold nights. It has an excellent memory that helps it relocate caches where it stores food. Chickadees adaptation to humans has made it quite bold including learning to feed from the hands of people. It is easy to identify by its distinctive black cap, white cheek feathers and black bib and is a daily visitor to backyard bird feeders. It often nests in hollows of birch or alder trees but will also nest in nest boxes built to its specifications. Both moths and butterflies constitute the Lepidoptera order of insects. Lepis comes from the Greek work scale and pteron means wing. In other words, the Lepidoptera has wings composed of thousands of small scales. They are analogous to the feathers of birds and perform the same functions. There are about 180,000 species known to humans. Approximately 90% of Lepidoptera species are moths and the other 10% are butterflies. Most moths are active at night. Butterflies, which evolved many millions of years later when flowers arrived, are active during the day time when flowers and nectar are at their peak. The caterpillar is the second of four stages of development of the moth and butterfly. The first stage is the egg, most of which are the size of a period at the end of a sentence. The second stage is the caterpillar or larval stage. This is the feeding stage. Its sole purpose is to eat and grow. As it grows it bursts its outer skin and out comes a larger caterpillar. It does this 4 to 5 times as it grows from a caterpillar about 1/8” long to one that is about 2-3” long. The third stage is the pupa stage or transitional stage. Here the caterpillar, if it is a butterfly, uses its last layer of skin to make a chrysalis and if it is a moth, a cocoon. The fourth stage is the adult or reproductive stage. Here you have the fully transformed butterfly or moth. The sole purpose of this stage is to mate and if you are a female, lay eggs. An interesting fact is that whereas butterflies need nectar as food to power flight and live from a few weeks to many months, most moths have no mouths at all and live very short lives, sometimes only days, with only enough time to quickly mate and lay eggs. The four stages of growth of the butterfly and moth are called a complete metamorphosis. Metamorphosis in Greek means a change of form, appearance or structure. Many cultures, including the ancient Greeks and the Aztecs, marveled and were perplexed at the wonder of a lowly crawling caterpillar being transformed as if by magic into a beautiful flying being. And so, the butterfly became the symbol for spiritual rebirth and transformation. The Greek word for butterfly is psyche, the same word they use for soul.
5 Comments
Sandra lawson
1/22/2021 05:01:46 pm
I love the crisp precision with which you write, Catherine!
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1/26/2021 02:18:34 pm
Hi Sandra, I have two styles of writing, one crisp (as in a newspaper article) and one more florid. I like both but for the blog, there is so much info to get out, crisp is better! I appreciate someone noticed and commented on this! Thank you.
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Melina
1/25/2021 05:32:46 pm
I had no idea it took so many caterpillars to feed chicks! What a wonderful perspective. I'm excited to see what I can plant to host caterpillars in my yard. Thank you!
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1/26/2021 02:21:28 pm
Hi Melina, You hit the nail on the head. Most people have no idea how important insects are and how many we need to have a healthy world with many species. Good luck in your butterfly garden. I will be dong a blog on how to create a butterfly garden and later a bird garden in the near future. Thank you for your comment, Catherine
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