A bird-friendly environment provides many benefits

Editor:

What follows is intended to be a reminder. It is not meant to lay a guilt trip on anyone.

My wife and I just saw a report regarding the spotted lantern fly, an invasive insect that can devastate trees—one of our principal allies in the fight to reduce carbon pollution. The sweeter a tree’s sap, the more likely lantern flies are to attack it.

What we heard suggested that lantern flies haven’t become a big problem in Orleans County yet but could eventually ravage some of our more desirable trees and become a major headache for fruit farmers.

Among our natural allies in dealing with spotted lantern flies are native birds. Those mentioned in the piece we heard included birds as diverse as catbirds and cardinals! The preying mantis and yellow jacket were among the insects that evidently feed on them. Healthy environments typically have an abundance of such creatures.

Providing habitat for their enemies helps control lantern flies. Avian enemies of other harmful insects—as well as rodents—include kestrels and screech owls as well as many songbirds such as orioles and bluebirds (the hawks and owls include some insects in their diets, while songbirds generally do not go after rodents).

As cardinals are mainly seed eaters, we were surprised that they take lantern flies. Presumably seed-eaters would use these insects and others primarily to feed their young.

The report we listened to provides another example of how a bird-friendly environment can be beneficial to us.

Thanks to the many people here who work to provide such habitat.

Sincerely yours,

Gary Kent

Albion