The MGS Forum
Gardening in mediterranean climates => Wildlife in the garden (birds, butterflies, and how to attract them) => Topic started by: Fleur Pavlidis on February 11, 2016, 09:34:31 AM
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We have a new feature on the MGS website about wildlife gardening "Wildlife gardening in a mediterranean climate" (http://www.mediterraneangardensociety.org/wildlife.html) which I hope you'll enjoy. I've reused many of the photos posted by our Forum members to illustrate the article by Melissa Hamilton in the latest issue of The Mediterranean Garden and other older but still very relevant articles.
Melissa has investigated the subject of planting natives for wildlife in her area (Umbria in Italy) and she writes:
"One thought I had is whether we could ... tap into the knowledge and experience of all of the MGS members. I'm thinking that they could submit plants for their area that they know (or have observed) are good for insects/birds etc. They could let us know the plant, its origin, and what wildlife it's good for. We could perhaps organise the information into zones so members could check their zone for planting suggestions."
The MGS Forum is the obvious place for this conversation so please post your ideas for good plants to attract wildlife and we'll ise them to add more information to the website page.
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Interesting article Melissa- I have noted, on this forum I think, that birds in the country seem reluctant to feed on provided food. When we moved to Italy I hung up strips of pork rind, carefully shelled nuts and even a half coconut in an attempt to encourage the numerous tits that I saw flitting amongst the trees. All to no avail, they studiously ignored them. Only a Robin came to peck at some crumbs I put out and,( as they are wont to do, followed me about when I was working in order to benefit from any worms I uncovered.) Since acquiring a small house in town with a decent garden I have been be amazed by how much more "urbanised" the birds are.
Tits, sparrows, starlings all come to feed on my improvised bird table and blackbirds abound -one became so used to my daily habit of putting fruit peelings and bacon fat out after breakfast that it would wait for me and, if I was a little late, come to the window ledge.
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Further to my previous post I would like to add a bit about what we plant in our gardens hoping to generate some discussion perhaps. When people ask me for help and advice as to what to plant in their gardens ( often newcomers to gardening in a Mediterranean climate but not always) I always refer them to the indigenous plants of the area pointing out that they will inevitably prove to be the easiest subjects. One plant that grows prolifically in our countryside is Spartium junceum - in the late spring and early summer their perfume invades the air making any car journey a pleasure. The flowers are bright and cheery and produced over a long period, the plant itself easy to grow tolerating most conditions and its form pleasingly architectural if kept under control with a yearly trim. Most people turn their noses up however when I mention it - " oh but that's a wild plant" they say. All plants are wild somewhere, or at least started off as wild plants. All plants have a role to play in the ecosystems of the world of which we are a part. Perhaps us gardeners are not quite the upholders of the " natural world" as we often like to think we are - for example when we try to save plants from extinction....
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Hello Fleur, thanks for the labour of putting together environmentally significant MGS articles. I very much enjoyed Melissa's account of her garden.
Yesterday, on Alisdair's FB page about Crocus there is a comment by Peter Riefenthaler. It doesn't seem to be much about Crocus, more about sustainable gardening. I followed his comment to search for the Di Rienzo garden and find that there is a description of it in MGS Balearic Islands Group in March 2011. The account may have some more info for your web page.
Incidentally, while doing that searching I have come across a magazine, Farming Matters, free to download from a group in the Netherlands. It seems to be about tropical small sustainable gardens, but the general principles would surely apply to Mediterranean gardens. I haven't read it yet, sadly real life chores intervened, but I can't wait to get my teeth into it.
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I've just (rather belatedly) joined the forum, and am catching up with this thread. I'm very interested by Umbrian's experiences with feeding birds. We notice that European birds generally seem much pickier than those in the tropics when it comes to food, I think because there are far fewer fruit eaters, and a lot of the seed and insect eaters must be quite picky. That said we have 3 kinds of tits and sparrows that eat the seeds in our feeders. I will be quite keen to try some Spartium junceum in the garden this year. Locals near us think our whole garden is "weeds", particularly the cistus, because they're local plants. But interestingly many of them like the garden and show their Italian friends. Our old neighbour loves the nigella that come up in spring (from seeds from the MGS seed exchange). She remembers them being widespread in the area when she was a girl, but you hardly see them now. I'm particularly interested in any thoughts people have for local plants which have fruit/berries in autumn prior to the main bird migration.
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Not very knowledgeable about bird migrations Melissa - if you can enlighten me I may be able to come up with some plants that have fruit/ berries at the appropriate time.
I was interested in your comments about Nigella. I love this plant and brought seed from the UK when we moved here. One year I found the wild Nigella growing in one of the wilder parts of the garden I was creating and was struck by its beauty - then I was afraid I might lose it to the enthusiastic self seeding cultivated one. This however has not happened and I still enjoy both having kept the wilder part still wild.
Back to birds- our house in the country is quite isolated and so I presume the birds that live all around it are accustomed to foraging and surviving whereas those who find themselves born into a more urban situation have inherited the habits of their parents and feed wherever they can and with less fear of humans.
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We are in a semi-wild/rural area, few people, but full of birds. They are not used to being fed, but they seem to appreciate what we give them, usually bread crumbs, and a large ceramic tray filled with water is very a popular meeting place for both small and slightly larger birds, like doves.
There are many wild bushes which I’m happy to see are making a good cover along our fence in Halkidiki. The locals don't understand why we want keep these, but I have managed to ignore their remarks. One of these is Phillyrea latifolia, which I think is a very nice bush, evergreen and with lots of small, blue berries in the autumn (lasting until spring). I read that:
‘P. latifolia fruits were a major component in the diet of principal seed dispersers (Sylvia atricapilla= Eurasian blackcap and Erithacus rubecula=robin) that depended almost exclusively on them for food late in the season’, ref. http://ebd10.ebd.csic.es/mywork/abstr/ecolmonogr94.html.
Another candidate here is the pistacia; they produce plenty of seeds which are eaten and dispersed by birds, and ‘a valuable resource because of the scarcity of food in some important times of year, as the time of breeding, migration, or the dry season’, according to Wikipedia.
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Replying to Joanna - I've made enquiries and unfortunately Laura Di Rienzo has now sold her house and garden and the new owners have 'tidied it up' and constructed a huge surrounding wall. On this last subject, when we did our fence I left tortoise-sized holes at ground level all around and it does seem to have worked, we have a variable population of tortoises of all sizes so I'm guessing that they're intelligent enough to find the holes and remember where they are to get out again. Unlike a litter of puppies who made it through but then cried for mummy pathetically until I pushed them back out again.
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Have to agree Jorun that birds seem to appreciate water wherever they find it and will happily visit any receptacles wherever they are placed in the garden. In our town garden they queue up on the wall to take their turn.
Another interesting point - I used always to cut Colin's hair and in the early spring would hang it outside in an old net that some vegetables are sold in. It was lovely to see the birds coming to collect it. Now, (Colin not having much hair left to cut!) I now cut up lengths of wool and tie them on trees and they are equally popular.
On finding old nests in the garden when pruning etc it is always fascinating to see what has been used - not so happy when I find plastic though.....
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Jorun thanks for both of those plant suggestions. I have had Phillyrea latifolia on my list for a while to plant along our bank, so this should spur me on to plant some. Umbrian, I am working on an article on gardens and bird migration, which I hope to finish after my "spring migration" back to Italy (I have a very good reference book on bird migration at home there). I think that September would be the key month for many of the European birds looking for autumn fruit, with most migratory birds gone by mid October. Some academic research on bird feeders indicates that, not only as you suggest that urban birds are better at using novel food sources, but because the density of feeders is higher birds are more likely to find them. Rural birds will not want to invest a lot of energy in scouting over larger distances between feeders. So you would have a much smaller population (being those close to you) that will utilise the feeders in a rural environment. And I too put my hair out for the birds - we used to put wool out when we were in Britain, but I find the birds quite like my hair. Unfortunately so do the spiders around the house ...
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Fleur,
Many thanks for that compendium of articles on wildlife gardening.
Melissa,
Thanks for your article, and welcome.
I was going to write some personal comments here, but they turned into a small article, which I shall run by the editors of The Mediterranean Garden...
Some other comments, speaking primarily as a butterfly and moth man...
We can make efforts to plant and grow so as to encourage wildlife, but populations may fluctuate independently of our efforts. ...Just to be aware.
For instance, two years ago, we had a very good year for African monarch butterflies, especially at a particular spot near Polis (western Cyprus). They were there because their larval foodplant was abundant there (it is generally scarce). But their numbers are generally reflective of how the species is faring in Africa and other areas visited during migration. On this occasion, however, it seems numbers had been enhanced because of ceremonial releases of the butterflies (raised in Spain) at weddings.
Painted ladies provide other observations. Two years ago, there was a mass migration - thousands of them streaming across the countryside in many parts of Cyprus, oblivious of obstacles, for several days. At the same time, many individuals were going about their usual business of flitting around Lantana bushes all day long, without joining-in the migration. The migrants were on the move because of population build-up to the south. This year, in the last couple of weeks, painted lady numbers have been increasing, but with much less evidence of the migratory streams. Most of the individuals seem to remain in one area. At Latchi, there is a stretch of low Lantana camara hedge between coast road and cycleway; it is covered with clouds of painted ladies; easily over 1,000. I've never seen so many. The Lantana hedge is the same as every year.
Two morals from these stories:
- if you plant favourably for butterflies and don't see many, it may not be your fault (don't be disheartened)
- if you get good numbers of butterflies, it may just be luck (but enjoy anyway!)
Mike
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Mike, your mention of Monarch butterflies reminded me that a couple of weeks ago a friend who lives in the next village showed me a seed pod from her young Ceiba speciosa (syn Chorisia speciosa) tree. It was the first one it had produced. She was under the impression that in their native South America they are pollinated by Monarch butterflies and was asking if I thought it might have been pollinated by an African Monarch here in Cyprus. I couldn't comment on this as I hadn't checked. These trees are not common in Cyprus and for a butterfly to have tracked down a lone specimen would seem to have been quite a feat, but who knows. Any thoughts on the feasibility?
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Interesting observation and thought. Thanks for passing it along, John.
Information
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As recently as 2014, Pasta, La Mantia and Badalamenti wrote an interesting paper on Ceiba speciosa:
"A casual alien plant new to Mediterranean Europe: Ceiba speciosa
(Malvaceae) in the suburban area of Palermo (NW Sicily, Italy)"
http://www.rjb.csic.es/jardinbotanico/ficheros/documentos/pdf/anales/2014/71_2_e010.pdf
It mentions butterflies amongst other possible pollinators, but not monarchs (Danaus sp.), though they are commonly mentioned in other references.
Other works cite bats, birds and bees as major pollinators of C. speciosa and/or other species of C.
Bees are certainly pollinators (eg. photos here - http://www.plantcreations.com/chorisia_speciosa.htm).
In the native range of C. pentandra, bats are cited as key pollinators
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=35469.
That paper also explains that that species is rather variable in its self-fertility, and tends not to set seed unless other trees are available for cross-pollination.
Two particular points:
- just because a monarch (or other vector) visits a flower, that does not mean it is a successful pollinator
- silk floss trees bloom in late winter to early spring - whereas monarchs visit Cyprus mainly in the autumn (though records span March to December) - not much overlap
My opinion
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I suspect, just on the basis of probability, that the Ceiba seed pod did not arise from pollination by an African monarch (Danaus chrysippus). Other pollinator(s) are more likely.
If your friend's tree is a lone specimen, it may never set much seed even if visited by suitable pollinators (but it could still flower well)
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Mike, thanks for that detailed and very interesting response. I'll pass the info along.
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With regard to Mike's point about Insect Visitors not necessarily being Pollinators. Many years ago I studied some Entomology in an Agriculture course and I still remember the advice that the presence of an insect on a plant does not necessarily mean the plant will be harmed. We were always to consider that the insect might be 'just visiting'.
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Joanna,
'Just visiting' - quite so.
Visiting can be for various purposes, such as: basking in the sun, looking-out for competitors (guarding territory), displaying to attract a mate, resting, seeking safety through camouflage (maybe), drinking dew, feeding on honeydew - all incidental to the plant being visited.
Curiously, I just posted about white spotted rose beetles. The ones in my photo (Oxythyrea noemi) are very keen on red hot pokers, and they cluster at the part of the inflorescence where the nice orange florets are giving way to pale remnants. Are the beetles responsible for the florets 'going over', or are they feeding on the decaying petals or on nectar? The answer is not obvious from quick observation, as the beetles often seem to have their heads out of sight amongst the florets. I shall have to look more closely...
http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=2265.msg15731#msg15731
Mike
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Wildlife Gardening in a Mediterranean Climate
I am head of the Costa Blanca branch, and we have a member of our group who has great knowledge of gardening for wildlife. She would like to respond to Mellissa’s appeal in the Journal, but is not an Internet user. Her name is Jacqueline Charron, and she has a remote cottage in the Font Roja nature reserve near Alcoy, Alicante. On a recent branch visit to her garden she gave us a twenty-page illustrated guide to the birds and butterflies that visit her garden that she had prepared for us, and we saw the nature reserve’s ornithologist ringing Great Tit nestlings from her many nest boxes. A real treat for nature enthusiasts!
Perhaps if Mellissa could contact me by email, (alanhawesinspain@gmail.com), I could put her in touch with Jacqueline, and establish communications.
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Mike I'm wondering if you can help us with this. Yesterday in the garden we saw the most amazing spider: it was on a scabiosa flower and was fabulously camouflaged. The abdomen was very large, with stripes the same colour as the flower. It was sitting very still, with its front legs (which were quite long, and like a crab spider) poised. Later on we saw it had caught a bee that had come to the flower to feed. I have attached a photo (apologies, it is not great as my camera doesn't really allow this level of zoom). Do you (or anyone else out there) know what type of spider this would be? It is the first time we have ever seen it. Melissa
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Melisa,
I am sure it is one of the crab spiders, in particular one of the flower crab spiders, and quite possibly Thomisus onustus; a female. Here is a nice page of unidentified Thomisus species, showing some of the colour variation, and describing how they can change their colour to match their flower
- http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/arachnids/spiders/thomisidae/thomisus.htm
More and very good detail on the Thomisus genus here
- http://www.jorgenlissner.dk/Thomisidae.aspx
And that gives a clue to IDing T. onustus:
"The species is easily identified by the triangular abdomen and the protuberances that carry the lateral eyes."
Also, the lines across the width of the abdomen distinguish it from Misumena vatia (which can also change colour), which has lines that run lengthwise along the abdomen.
I get T. onustus in my garden, in various colours and patterns, including a marked-whitish one like yours.
They are not worried about having a go at prey much bigger than themselves, such as butterflies.
As with many a titchy creature, the closer you look, the more fascinating stuff you see.
If you look closely at one of the (colourful) females, you might see a much smaller brown male on her. There's an example of that in the top-left photo in the first link above.
Mike
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Mike thanks so much for that, and the very useful links. I think you are right that it is Thomisus onustus based on the stripes. In fact yesterday she had moved from the scabiosa to a pale pink phlomis, similar colour but a little different, and we had noticed she had changed to perfectly match that flower. I wonder whether this one always picks pink-ish flowers, and what happens when the spring flowering season is over? We may have to find some summer flowering plants in her very fashionable shade ...
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Yes, thanks for the links about spiders Mike - fascinating. I see a lot of these in the garden and have been amazed at how they change colour according to the plant they are on - always meant to do some research but never found the time. Shall be looking out for the hopeful males now, lurking and awaiting their chance!
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As I was sitting on the lounge floor playing with my grandson, I looked up through the glass doors to find myself being stared at by a fox on the verandah. This in itself was not very surprising because being on the edge of town we often get foxes passing through, but he wasn’t alone. My non-threatening neutered tom was sitting a metre away on the wall taking stock and behind the fox were two not so unthreatening magpies jumping up and down. I flapped my arms to scare the birds which flew off leaving the fox to turn tail and trot back into the garden. The cat carried on with his business.
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Mike, thankyou for the interesting links you are posting on the Forum. I was particularly interested to follow the link about the spotted rose beetle, 4 May, which led me to the site of Dr Guido Sabitelli, a UN health expert, based in Jordan, who collects bugs.
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Apologies to Dr Guido. In fact his name is Sabatinelli.
It is easy to become lazy when using the ipad. I usually don't take notes before I post, and then I make mistakes.
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Lovely story Fleur. One reason I find gardening so rewarding is the closeness to the natural world around us - noticing things that many people never see.
Today I decided to tackle a very overgrown rambling rose that had been allowed to do whatever it wanted due to a blackbird's nest in an adjoining shrub. I had observed that the fledglings seem to have flown and frequent heavy rain was making it impossible use the path without getting soaked.
I spent a good hour climbing up and down a step ladder, tying in long shoots and dispensing with others, getting thoroughly scratched in the process. Once satisfied that I had done all I could I decided to prune the shrub before I cleared up. Imagine my surprise when I found the nest still in use........the hen was sitting looking at me and had obviously been there throughout my labours....at one point I was tying in the Rose just above where the nest was.
After I had hastily swept up and moved away slightly, she came down into the garden and started to rootle for worms, the male took over nest duty.
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Not in our garden but the Troodos Botanical Garden. Spotted these big fellas all over a plant of Troodos Sage (Salvia willeana) this morning.
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Lovely photo, John. Could you send it to me in full size? It might be suitable for a banner photo on the website when it's time to change. I'm grown fond of having creatures at the top of the page and the salvia is a beauty.
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On the strength of your lovely picture I've just ordered seed, John, in the hope that it'll grow for us here in the UK even if our hot lowland garden in Greece is too hot for it....
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Fleur, photo will be on its way later today.
Alisdair, in the Trees and Shrubs of Cyprus book it's described as being endemic to Cyprus, confined to the ophiolite formations of the Troodos range (1000-1950m), growing on rocky places and in pine forest and shrubland.
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John that is a beautiful photo! Umbrian, I liked your story of the blackbird nest. Many birds choose to nest near something that will scare away predators: perhaps the blackbird thought you moving about in your garden would help keep its predators at bay, including magpies, rats and cats. There are some great examples out there: hummingbirds nesting beneath hawks to protect them from jays and egrets and herons nesting above alligators to protect them from raccoons and possums. The thorns on the rose bush would also be a very attractive deterrent.
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I thought the group I posted earlier were big but this solitary guy seen in the managed landscape of a housing development in the Paphos District is probably bigger.
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Yes - she's a biggie - mammoth wasp, Megascolia maculata flavifrons.
I saw one on the Akamas, 12mar14.
Like the tarantula killer wasps, mammoth wasps are parasitic upon a suitably chunky prey, in this case European rhinoceros beetle larvae.
Mike
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A tortoise safety warning. I have a little triangular lily pond on the edge of my paved terrace and after having to save a drowning hedgehog from it in the early days I surrounded the front edge with large stones and arranged pots along the other two, raised edges which back onto flower beds. Nevertheless a large thirsty tortoise managed to barge his way up and through the pots at the back and presumably toppled in as he was drinking. Purely by chance I happened by, saw him under water but with tiny bubbles coming from his mouth. I pulled him out and put him down in the sun and he slowly staggered off much to my relief. I’ve now resorted to a bigger barricade. My warning is that tortoises don’t know their own limitations and get into all sorts of trouble – rather like hedgehogs in fact. I few weeks back I found one upside down on one of my wide terrace steps. I assume he’d been tempted up by a tasty looking succulent in a pot and just as it was within his grasp did a backward flip and lay there stuck until I rescued him.
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Fleur,
Nice story, happy endings 'n all.
In addition to your defences, you could erect little warning signs in tortoisese :)
The tortoises might not actually heed the warning, but your visitors might be amused :)
Mike
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Mouth to mouth on a tortoise might be a bit much! :o
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It's that time of year: longer mild evenings mean sitting outside later. It also means watching as a vole (albeit very cute) boldly eats your plants in front of your very eyes. So I thought I would post some ideas, and see if others can make other recommendations. Two of our beds are particularly affected by voles, and it has been interesting seeing which plants survive and which plants don't. My observations would indicate that the plants that survive include (a) ones that voles don't like, such as most Cistus and (b) ones that spread underground, such as Teucrium fruticans and Vinca, as the loss of some of the roots is often not terminal for the plant. Plants that seem to be vole favourites include Helichrysum italicum, Rosa canina (we watched a vole take it down leaf by leaf, and in the end there was not a single root, leaf or stem left) and Phlomis fruticosa (although in fact a large one that was entirely eaten off at the base did re-grow when clipped and shoved in a pot, still going strong now in a less vole-populated part of the garden). If anyone else knows of plants that voles tend to avoid, or has suggestions of Mediterranean plants which spread underground, then it would be much appreciated as part of the planning for September plantings.
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Hi Mike. We have had two Mammoth Wasps in the garden this year (previously we had only noticed a single one). In the last week we now have a wasp that has exactly the same markings, but is about 1/3 of the size. Would this be a young Mammoth Wasp, or do they emerge the same size as the adult? If it's not a Mammoth Wasp, do you know what species it might be? Thanks, Melissa
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Melissa,
Wasps, bees, etc. emerge full-grown. But they can be smaller than normal (or deformed) if they have had a tough diet as a larva; that's unusual, though. I'll have a think about your 1/3-size one.
Voles, etc.
Spreading underground: Well, Cupressus trees roots are about the most aggressive root spreaders I have come across. I once dug up a small cube of border soil (where I was having great difficulty getting anything to grow). The surface of the soil looked normal, but as soon as I hosed the soil, I began to reveal the mesh of roots. By the time I had finished hosing, I was left with something like a birds's nest or Shredded Wheat! Bermuda grass is also extremely good at spreading underground. You probably want something that spreads but gives other plants a chance. Mentha? Perhaps not sufficiently garden-worthy. I wonder if others that spread and root on/near the surface may stand a chance, eg. Rodondo creeper, Lippia nodiflora, Tecoma (Tecomaria) capensis, Viola odorata. And consider the stoloniferous form of Ranunculus asiaticus, as discussed here (http://'http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=66.0') already.
I have been trying to think of plants that may not only be unpalatable to voles, but which may also deter/repel them. My mind goes to camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora), but (although I have seen some healthy specimens in Cyprus), that is too agressive, and the vapours inhibit plants as well.
There is plenty of advice/info online, eg.
- "Narcissi (daffodils) are poisonous to voles, and they will not eat them. By planting them throughout the planting beds, the garden becomes less attractive to voles."
"Rosemary deters voles. I once planted a few tulip bulbs around a rosemary plant. The voles ate all the bulbs in the garden bed except the ones near the rosemary plant."
[http://thesagebutterfly.blogspot.com.cy/2012/03/vole-in-garden-control-methods.html]
- Crown imperial repels voles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pest-repelling_plants]
Mike
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Mammoth Wasp. as an aside to the above topic, I enjoy the sound of the wasps's common name in Toscana, 'bofonchio'. It sounds suitably clunky and blundering and derives from 'bofonchiare' to moan, mutter or stammer. But who is doing the moaning, the wasp or the object of its attention?
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Thanks Mike. The bed is under a deciduous oak, so I think that trying Viola may be a good idea, as well as some Narcissus. On bulbs, I can say that nothing likes the (clearly strong) taste of Tulbaghia bulbs, neither the voles nor the porcupines.
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Hi Mike. We've been watching out for that smaller wasp. Is it possibly a small male? He has a black head, not the yellow of the female, so I think this may explain the size difference, though it's very marked in this case. A few years ago a privet tree in the garden died, and as we slowly cut it back we left just under 1m of stump at ground level in the garden bed. This is where the Mammoth Wasps are always seen, and I guess they're looking for rhinocerous beetle larvae in the stump to lay their eggs on. Melissa
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Melissa,
male - yes - sounds right
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I am wondering whether any one knows whether porcupines (or others, like voles) eat Asphodelus fistulosus. I have just bought some, and I am trying to decide whether to put them in the ground or keep it in a pot?