Your Garden, a Gift for the Birds BY KATE ROGERS-GESSERT Waking to the songs of finches, watching a flock of pine siskins swing through the air — these are joys in life. To thrive in your garden, birds need food, shelter, water, and protection from cats and collisions with windows. Crabapple Tree You can plant a wildlife corner or a whole garden. A garden with seeds, fruits, flowers for nectar, and plenty of insects attracts a wide range of birds. Plants and insects free of pesticides are important to birds' health. Different birds feed in soil and leaf litter, at varying levels of shrubs and trees, in bark and moss, on and under bird feeders. Birds who visit feeders need consistent seed supply, clean feeders to prevent disease, and nearby trees and shrubs to perch in and escape from predators. Keith Oldham was puzzled when no birds came to the feeder on his deck — until he added a potted tree. Black sunflower seeds appeal to many kinds of birds. Water helps birds survive hot and cold spells and brings them to drink and bathe where you can see them. Perching places and cover are important near water, too. To prevent mosquitoes, add goldfish or gambusia to ponds, and change the water in bird baths every few days. Water in bird baths and bird-friendly areas of ponds should be about one inch deep, with good footing on the bottom. One of our bird baths is blue ceramic, pretty but slippery; we place a flat rock in it so birds can bathe. Our plainer bird bath is concrete with a textured bottom. Birds wait in line for this one, congregating on nearby bushes. Birds need shelter to nest, hide from predators and avoid temperature extremes. Trees and shrubs, brush piles, nest boxes, snags, grasses growing long and perennials left untrimmed in winter all provide shelter. As I work my way through my winter garden, I notice a lot more birds where I haven't cleaned up yet. They are gradually persuading me to wait until early spring to make everything tidy. They also prefer shrubs and trees that I restrain myself from pruning: wild rose thickets, twiggy hawthorns and forsythias. The more tangled, the better. Cats are the curse of bird gardens. People who are tender to their kitties may, inexplicably, establish a kill zone for birds around their houses — and their neighbors' houses — by letting their pets roam free. To protect birds, cats belong indoors until they are ancient and tottering. The first line of defense against bird/window crashes is screens, which soften both reflections and impacts. You can try closing curtains. Hawk outlines on picture windows are somewhat effective, as are bits of outdoor glitter moving in the wind and white stains of bird poop from previous collisions. I've found the poop strangely effective. Though it's not aesthetically pleasing, neither is the thud of a feathered body hitting glass. Bird feeders are safest very close to windows or over 25 feet away. Birds fly most wildly when they are mating or just leaving the nest. At these times, they need extra protection. I've also noticed more crashes on sunny days that burst forth in glory after weeks of clouds. In city and suburbs, birds can flourish where neighbors provide wildlife corridors — hedgerows along fences — which increase habitat and also provide greater privacy between backyards. Neighbors can cooperate by growing larger wildlife trees in adjacent gardens: "You plant an incense cedar, I'll plant a Garry oak." The dense foliage of incense cedars makes for safe nesting; oaks provide food for scores of bird species. Oaks have not only acorns, but many insects living along their licheny branches. Native plant species are good for native birds, and some non-natives are excellent additions. Rufous hummingbirds return to Oregon in February, in time for the bloom of native red-flowered currant. Maeve Sowles loves watching goldfinches hanging from sunflowers that grew from seeds the same birds planted last year. Dennis Lueck watches juncos, usually ground-feeders, feast on seed along the spreading branches of a coast redwood. Near my kitchen window is a crabapple with orange fruits that last through early winter. One January day, dozens of robins will assemble and strip the tree. The European birch above our patio is a cafeteria, yielding an ongoing stream of insects and slowly disintegrating seedheads for finches, nuthatches, and warblers. Plant sources: Bloomers Nursery, Doak Creek Native Plants, Down to Earth, Lorane Hills Nursery. Great book: Russell Link's Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest, at Book Mark and J. Michael's. Plant list at www.laneaudobon.org.Search "native plants birds." Send ideas and comments to shadesofgreen@eugeneweekly.com     Sleepy Seekers In search of regime and sheet change BY SALLY SHEKLOW Despite setbacks in our federal government, Wifey and I continue right on progressing through middle age. Simultaneous hot flashes and night sweats keep us sleepless enough; now we find ourselves beset with odd sleeping habits that, like our commander in chief, don't make any sense. Wifey's inexplicable need to sprawl on the diagonal conflicts with my penchant for stretching out like a free-falling skydiver. Then we compete for opposing fetal-curl room. The way we sleep, we're one of the few American families who are actually making ends meet. Not that cuddling up in a double bed is all bad. When we have to, Sweetie and I can even manage in a twin for a night by simply employing the handy entwine-and-cling method. But how I long for the freedom to fully extend. I've outgrown small beds and I hate to retreat to the couch when I'm too middle-of-the-night cranky to work out a peace accord. Even without any political capital, I've got a clear mandate for a bigger bed. We didn't change the presidential regime this time, but we can change our bed. It's a values-based decision. I value a good night's sleep. Until democracy is restored, I won't rest easy. But I would rest better in a comfy bed. Unlike the dismal prospect of four more years, I look forward to the end of our small-bed days. I'm plenty blue about the elections, but I'm optimistic that Wifey and I can actually achieve nocturnal comfort. I'm feeling hopeful and I intend to keep hope alive. Being good lesbians, we're processing all the issues. We've shared our feelings about what changing bed size means to us, to our bank account, and to our chakras. We've considered that a bigger bed will narrow the aisle to the bathroom and increase the incidence of night stumbling. Bigger sheets will require re-choreographing our traditional sheet-folding dance. While we don't like the current bed, we're used to it. I can see why folks prefer the incumbent: Change is scary. And bed diversity is overwhelming. There are so many choices — plush, ultra plush, pillowtop, soft, firm, extra firm, ultra firm, flip-floppy and resolute. Size is important too. You've got your queen (not for actual size queens), king, and California king — soon to be known as The Schwarzenegger. How will we know which mattress is right for us? Which will really support us over the long haul? Can we have them debate each other? Can we change beds in the middle of a war? What about those high-end memory-foam beds? We won't even go there. The way things are with national defense, Bush will have Homeland Security smoke out the Tempur-Pedics and extract intelligence on what private nighttime activities the memory foam actually remembers. They have their ways. I worry that a Bush-appointed Supreme Court might not defend our inalienable mattress-sampling rights. Who will protect our freedom to simulate real-life bed-use in the sleep shop? Can we spoon? Bounce on all fours? Exactly how thoroughly can two big dykes test drive a Sealy before we're detained and hauled off to some mattress-violators' Guantánamo? This is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. We're free to choose our own bed — even if our choice for president fell victim to "voting irregularities." We're brave to fall asleep at night while the terrorist alert needle quivers into code orange. But who can buy a new bed when you can't even afford insurance? The special rights of spousal health coverage are reserved for heterosexually married people only. One man, one woman or else. We've still got a way to go before our equality mission is accomplished. So, everybody, let's keep at it. Don't tune out and doze off. Four years from now we'd better elect a progressive, pro-choice, LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Intersex, Queer)-friendly, anti-racist, environmentally sensitive, diversity-embracing, peace-promoting, education-funding, science-believing regime. Then, we'll all sleep better. Sally Sheklow's Living Out column began in EW in 1999 and now appears in alternative and queer publications worldwide. She teaches writing at LCC Downtown Center— to enroll, contact www.lanecc.edu, 463-3100 or e-mail sally@wymprov.com
		Table of Contents | News | Views | Calendar| Film | Music | Culture | Classifieds | Personals | Contact | EW Archive | Advertising Information |