Eleven and Counting! My first butterflies of 2016

Phaon Crescent

I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras February 4-10 with a bunch of friends (including of course my husband). That was fun and we thankfully had sunny, not-terribly-cold weather on Mardi Gras itself for our marching in the Rex parade.

We march with a great bagpipe band, Kilts of Many Colours. I'm holding the flag.

Victor & I drove all the way to Louisiana, instead of flying, so that we had road trip options on the way back. In order to try and get my year's first butterflies, we decided to drive down into northern Florida before heading home. Since this was the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend as well, I thought we might also get some pretty nice birds along the way.

First we stopped at Mississippi Sandhill Crane NWR, since it was right off the highway. It was clearly far too early for butterflies here, but I hoped for a Sandhill Crane or two. Didn’t get the cranes, but still got some pretty awesome birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count: a Brown-headed Nuthatch, and several Eastern Meadowlarks, along with a Savannah Sparrow. (I’ve seen the latter in Maryland and Virginia before, but it was kind of cool to see them in the habitat they’re named for!)

It was hard to get a decent shot of the meadowlarks, they all kept thrusting their heads into the grass after bugs.

Even cooler though were the carnivorous plants we saw here: a couple species of pitcher plant and dwarf sundew. Very cool! I'd never seen these in the wild before.

I looked closely but didn't see any bugs trapped in the sundew. Too bad.

Next we went to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. It still looked a bit sparse here, with not much blooming yet, but a few things were out and we managed to find the first butterflies of the year: Cloudless Sulphur, Little Yellow, and Carolina Satyr. (A ton of the latter, actually, I’m sure I undercounted them as we walked through a wooded trail.) We also explored an open prairie section where I had high hopes for additional species. We saw no butterflies here, though, and really hardly anything was blooming. But we had our second bald eagle and also found massive piles of bison poop along the trail, which made me giggle.

Little Yellow

I briefly checked some roadsides along our drive and at the motel we stayed overnight, but found no more butterflies until we got down to Saint Petersburg. The western-facing Gulf Coast was much further along than the panhandle area of Florida or even the north-central section. We stayed overnight in Saint Petersburg and spent a giddy few hours birding and butterflying at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve there. I got several more butterfly species here as well as quite a few songbirds, raptors, and so forth.  I've seen Gopher tortoises here before and hoped I'd see another this trip, but Victor was the only one who spotted one this time; it was gone before I caught up. I love those silly tortoises, wish I’d seen one this trip. Maybe next time.

Gulf Fritillary

Our next park was all the way on the other coast of Florida: Orlando Wetlands Park, in Christmas, FL. Unfortunately by the time we got there the day had become almost completely cloudy and quite breezy, not prime weather for butterflies. We tried anyway but only found two: another Phaon Crescent and another Dainty Sulphur. To be honest, though, that was really made up for by the amazing variety of birds we saw though! Tons of charismatic species, both big and little: Roseate spoonbill, bald eagle, painted bunting, various herons, egrets, and ibises; my first-ever American White Pelican (yippee!) and that longed-for Sandhill Crane. The latter we even saw up close as it grazed under the birdfeeder hung near the picnic shelter! So funny.

White Pelican. Later we saw about a dozen flying in formation, pretty cool.

Even Sandhill Cranes like bird feeders, who knew?

On the way home we stopped briefly at Jennings State Forest in Middleburg. Again the weather was not conducive to butterflies, completely cloudy. We spooked a brown something about the right size and shape for an Elfin, but lost it before either of us got a good look. Phooey. However, we still saw some fun birds, including Red-shouldered hawks and another Brown-headed nuthatch. Not bad.

My final trip lists:

Birds
Blue-winged Teal
Pied-billed Grebe
White Pelican
Double-Crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Green Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Red-shouldered Hawk
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Killdeer
Least Sandpiper
Herring Gull
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Tree Swallow
Tufted Titmouse
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Scarlet Tanager? (heard only)
Northern Cardinal
Painted Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Boat-tailed Grackle

Butterflies
Sleepy Orange
Dainty Sulphur
Little Yellow
Cloudless Sulphur
Orange-barred Sulphur
Gulf Fritillary
Phaon Crescent
White Peacock
Carolina Satyr
Long-tailed Skipper
Whirlabout

Other
Pitcher plant sp.
Dwarf Sundew
Raccoon
Gray Squirrel 

Armadillo
Cricket Frog (heard)
Gopher Tortoise
American Alligator
Sweat Bee sp.
Honeybee
Bumblebee sp.

I’d hoped to get maybe 20 butterfly species this trip for the Butterfly Bigger Year, but I’ll be satisfied with 11 to start off.

My Goals & Plans for 2016

Happy 2016, everybody!  It's time to look at what I want to accomplish this year. I always enjoy evaluating my year’s projects and planning new ones for the coming year. My goals usually fall into three main categories, so I’ve grouped them below. I listed smaller targets or subgoals for each main goal, to help me make progress in smaller bites.

Category 1. Science & Nature

Butterflies, butterflies, and more butterflies!

 

Goal 1.1: Do a Butterfly Bigger Year I had so much fun with my Butterfly Big Year last year that I’m doing it again. I learned a lot so I set a very ambitious goal for the project: 120 species, whereas I only saw 81 last year. My goal for the first Big Year was 100, though, so even though I didn’t achieve it I wanted to have a higher target this year.  My minimum goal though is to at least break 100 species, even while aiming for 120 for the Bigger Year.

·       Target 1:  See 25 Butterfly species by May 8 (Mother’s Day); visit at least 5 sites I didn’t butterfly at during the first Big Year.

·       Target 2: Reach 75 species by June 23; visit 5 more sites I didn’t try last year

·       Target 3: 100 species by August 15; continue expanding my sites list.

·       Target 4: Attend National Association for Interpretation's annual workshop in Texas in November and take a couple side trips for butterflying!

Goal 1.2: Record & report observations A broader goal than the really focused Big Year is to be more diligent about recording and reporting my nature observations. I need to keep better records of what I’m seeing, and also report it to appropriate citizen science projects like eBird, e-Butterfly, budburst, etc.

·       Target 1: identify where to report and what information is needed

·       Target 2: create habits of careful observing & recording—and spend more time with nature than with electronics!

·       Target 3: report at least weekly if not daily

·       Target 4: keep looking for new longterm projects that need data, and participate in them.

Goal 1.3: Participate in more citizen science projects Similarly, I want to participate in more organized citizen science projects. I didn’t end up signing up for FeederWatch this year after all, but there are still additional bird events coming up that I could do: Backyard Bird Watch, Big Sit, and so forth. I’d really like to join a local Butterfly Count in July as well—which would probably help me toward my butterfly goals too! Once again I just need to get past some of the confidence issues.

·       Target 1: pencil dates on planner for things like Big Sit, Backyard Bird Watch, etc.

·       Target 2: attend one interpretive program per month at another park (not mine) for networking possibilities

·       Target 3: look into local parks’ participation in bigger projects (e.g. Christmas Bird Count, NABA Butterfly Count, etc.)

·       Target 4: Participate this year in 3 projects I’m aware of already, and 2 that are new to me this year.

Goal 1.4: Get more professional experience as a naturalist—DONE!! If I hadn’t recently been offered a job as a seasonal naturalist at Locust Grove Nature Center (see here) I had decided this would be the year I would try to earn more experience as a naturalist, whether paid or volunteer. It’s so nice to already be able to check this one off!

Category 2. Connection

I hoped this book display would engage and connect with Brookside Gardens visitors.

 Goal 2.1: Connect more. In general I want to connect more with people this year. I need to reach out more, let myself be vulnerable, and also make sure not to let relationships drop dead for lack of attention. Some connection I want to increase is online, e.g. here, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Also I want to increase my connection with people (eventually friends) in real life as well.

·       Target 1: Actually converse with folks on Twitter & Facebook rather than just lurking. Need to set a goal of comments/week and find ways to not get drawn into a time suck.

·       Target 2: Continue reaching out to people I don’t know but who share interests with me. Eventually aim to invite local online-only friends to meet for real-life activities: birding or butterflying, perhaps?

·       Target 3: Post original content more often on Twitter rather than just retweeting interesting articles. Also make original comments when retweeting to add personal value.

Goal 2.2: Socialize more I want to be more social this year specifically—go to friends’ parties/events more often, go out dancing more, and maybe even host a gathering at my house sometime this year. I tend to be fairly introverted where Victor is very extroverted, so I know this has stressed him out some lately. If I can get over my initial timidity I hope to be a better partner for him, but also make a better life for myself with closer friends whom I trust and frequently talk with.

·       Target 1: Invite friends out for dinners, hiking, etc. at least one time per month

·       Target 2: Find ways to be comfortable at social gatherings. Collect interesting anecdotes, for example. Also try to journal more often to work on remembering interesting experiences. (Other than the anxiety itself, one of my difficulties is coming up with anything to talk about, even with close friends. If I can work on that maybe parties will get a little less stressful.)

·       Target 3: Go out at least twice per week. Dancing, movies with friends, casual type stuff that still gets me (us) out of the house. Hopefully budget-friendly events.

·       Target 4: Invite friends over for a board games night by the end of the year.

Goal 2.3: Comment on blogs more often. I know I need to comment on other people’s blogs more often. I love it so much when folks leave a comment here, I really need to reciprocate in a general sense. Not only the specific commenters’ blogs, but just into the world of blogging as a whole. I hope this will help me with goal 2.1 as well. 

·       Target 1: Organize my blog reading list better (and make sure to keep adding new ones that I find via Twitter connections).

·       Target 2: Set aside specific blog reading time to catch up with posts each week. Start with once per week, maybe increase later.

·       Target 3: Make value-added comments on at least 5 different blog posts each week. Not just “Cool post!” but adding some kind of insight, an additional resource, or showing some kind of active reflection.

Category 3. Making and creating

Making yummy and beautiful things like the apple peel jelly.

 

Goal 3.1 Blog weekly.  I want to blog at least weekly this year. Last year and previous years I kind of hobbled myself by expecting nearly every post to be fairly long with lots of illustrations. This year I intend to give myself more freedom to post shorter pieces, with a sub-goal of one longish piece per month. So I’m aiming for a minimum of 50 blog posts in total, and 10 long-form posts out of those. (What do you think? Anything you’d like to see more or less of? Let me know in the comments.)

·       Target 1: Create an editorial calendar to make some posts easier. Include monthly topic/theme possibilities.

·       Target 2: Schedule time each week to write and post. Get up earlier a couple mornings to do this? Or find a coffeeshop type locale to visit regularly for writing time.

·       Target 3:  Come up with some repeating topics, e.g. every first Monday post photos of the previous month’s best butterflies and/or other wildlife seen on my walks.

·       Target 4: Create central pages that link to recurring themes or topics, like the Big Year, citizen science, etc., to make the blog friendlier and easier for readers to navigate.

·       Target 5: I could also include posts about my Yearofmaking project. Maybe once per month showing projects I’m working on and their progress or failure. Links and/or instructions would be handy as well. See next goal.

Goal 3.2 Twitter challenge: Year of making. This is a year-long challenge I'm doing on Twitter of making something handmade every day. So far I’ve cut out paper snowflakes, made a short paper chain for the Christmas tree from scraps left over from the snowflakes, made a hollow book to hide secret treasures, made seed tapes for planting in the spring, and done a lot of knitting. I also UNmade on one day, when I had to rip out about 20 rows of the sock I’m working on when I decided a mistake way back was just too bad to ignore. Ugh.                   

·       Target 1: First thing is to get in the habit of low-key crafting in the evenings while watching TV. Knitting straightforward patterns, cutting out paper decorations, etc. Also be on the lookout for other places I could be multitask crafting: knitting while waiting in line at the grocery store, perhaps?

·       Target 2: Try new crafts that look intriguing even if they’re challenging and I’m not sure I will succeed. For example, the secret treasure book which I made for Frances, my grandmother-in-law's roommate at the assisted living home. That was a little difficult but turned out great!

·       Target 3: Organize my craft supplies so I can find and access them more easily. Also make a cleaner, bigger space to craft in (mostly by cleaning stuff off my workspaces when I’m done).

Goal 3.3 knit 3 pairs of socks Last year I learned how to knit in the round (woo-hoo! Double pointed needles were kind of scary but I can do it now), and this year I want to to get much better at knitting socks. I want to finish 3 pairs of socks this year, so six socks in all. That might be a bit of a tall order considering my current glacial pace, but I’m going to try anyway. Sock yarn is so thin, it seems to take forever to make progress. But I did treat myself to lovely batches of handspun and hand-dyed yarn at last year’s Sheep & Wool festival, so I will have awesome socks when I’m done.                 

·       Target 1: finish knitting the relatively simple pattern I started at the end of 2015.

·       Target 2: For the second pair, try a different pattern that might be a little challenging but that will probably teach me something.

·       Target 3: Look into knitting socks on circular needles. Maybe I could go faster if I don’t have the double-pointed needles causing issues.

Goal 3.4: Learn to can I’d also like to learn how to properly can this year, using a hot water bath and everything so that I can make shelf-stable preserved fruits and veggies other than dehydrated ones. I have my grandmother-in-law’s huge canning pot and rack already but haven't had the guts to try using it yet. Canning will be a big step up from where I am now—I mostly have been preserving produce by freezing, dehydrating, or refrigerating the things I make.  It would be really nice to can my own tomatoes and things, though, and not have to take up freezer space for them.

·       Target 1: identify what other equipment I’ll need and figure out how to acquire or borrow it.

·       Target 2: Try canning something I already know how to make, e.g. apple butter or tomato sauce.

·       Target 3: Try making something new specifically to preserve it. Jelly/jam? Pickles? Depends on what’s in season when I get here.

So that's all my goals for 2016. Seems like a lot when I look at it here on the screen. Am I being too ambitions? Maybe, but I certainly won't be bored! I'll have to revisit these goals in a few months to see if I need to change or postpone them.

What are some of your goals this year? Chime in with a comment, I'd love to hear about them!

Hooray! I'm gonna be a professional naturalist

So I haven't been posting as often as I'd hoped this year, at least not so far. As often happens, I'm working on lots of drafts but never get around to finalizing and publishing. There's just so much else going on.

But some of what I've been doing has resulted in really good news: I got a job offer to be a seasonal (part-time) naturalist at Locust Grove Nature Center. Yippee! I'll be working there all week in the summer, but fall through spring I'll be there half the week and still work at Brookside Gardens the other half. I am really happy about that. I want to advance my naturalist career but I would feel bad abandoning the library and volunteer program here.  So now it's the best of both worlds.


I don't yet know when I'll start at Locust Grove, we're still working that out. Probably in the next month or so. An additional benefit to taking this job is now I get to check off one of my 2016 goals and we're not even done with January! I had decided this was the year I would either get a naturalist job or start a regular gig volunteering as a naturalist. Ta-da! All set.

So stay tuned for my adventures at Locust Grove. I'll also be posting soon about my goals and plans for 2016, which include of course writing here more frequently. :-)

2015: My Big Year by the numbers

So on Friday I summarized my Big Year experiences, or at least some of the highlights. Today I wanted to break it down a bit more.

As I mentioned, I saw a total of 81 species of butterfly.
28 of the total were lifers for me, 34.6%. Not bad!

Out of the 81 species:

• 8 were Swallowtails
• 2 were Whites
• 10 were Sulphurs/Dogfaces/Oranges
• 5 were Hairstreaks/Elfins
• 4 were Blues/Azures
• 25 were Brush-foots
• 27 were Skippers

I searched for butterflies in 27 different parks:

• 1 National Park
• 3 National Wildlife Refuges
• 1 National Forest
• 1 National Monument
• 5 state parks
• 3 Nature Centers & Nature Preserves
• 4 Regional and Metro Parks
• 2 Botanical Gardens & Arboreta
• 1 Natural Environmental Area
• 1 Amusement Park
• 5 neighborhood & community parks

 I also visited 4 residential locations (my house, relatives' houses, and so forth).

I searched for butterflies at more than 7 rest stops and random stops along the roadside. Probably far more rest stops than I can remember for sure, I need to improve my recordkeeping this year.

I visited 7 states for my Big Year: Maryland, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. This year I probably would do well to head north a bit more than I did in 2015.

What I didn't keep track of last year but plan to this year:

• Total number of forays
• Time spent for the project (both how many days I spent any time butterflying, as well as total time spent in the field)
•  Miles traveled to get to/from foray sites
• Miles hiked/walked during forays
• Money spent on parking fees, park admissions, etc.
• Total days taken off work to go butterflying

Anything else you think I should track this year? Let me know in the comments. It's going to be a great year. :-)

2015: My (first) Butterfly Big Year in Review

One of many Peck's Skippers I saw this year; this one was at Stoneridge Pond near my house.

I had so much fun doing a butterfly Big Year this year! I was limited by budget and free time, of course, but managed to tie quite a bit of traveling into looking for new and unusual butterflies. I ended up seeing a grand total of 81 species, 28 of which were lifers for me! I didn't manage to reach my target of 100 total species, but still I feel pretty pleased.

This Mangrove Skipper was one of the tropical prizes I spotted during a quick trip to southern Florida.

I learned a lot about butterflying while trying to rack up as many species as I could. I found out how to use NABA's sightings page, both current sightings and archived sightings, to target my searches. I explored several parks for the first time, and also grew to understand better how to interpret field guides' notes about flight times.

I found this Eastern Pine Elfin at Calvert Cliffs State Park, on the same trip that we adopted a new kitten!

I met wonderful people along the way of course: scientists, both professional and amateur lepidopterists, park staff, and generally friendly folks. I also discovered that many of my friends were more interested in hearing about my butterfly hunts than I'd expected! That was a nice surprise. I found that having a specific goal really helped get me into the field more often.

Another tropical species was this Ruddy Daggerwing. So exciting to see it in real life, not just on the pages of my field guide.

There are several things I wish I'd done differently this year, though. For one thing, I still didn't get out as often as I should. I didn't take the ephemerality of butterfly flight seriously enough: it always seemed like there would be other chances (of course that didn't turn out to be the case).  Come to think of it, while doing the Big Year I really paid attention to the changes in species flying from week to week, so noticed when we were in between generations of several species more than I usually did.  That was pretty cool.

I also didn't decide to do a Big Year until after the early season was almost over, so missed my chances at many of the early specialties, like Falcate Orangetip. I know a lot more now about local colonies of some of the early species, which would have really helped me waste less time looking in the wrong places. Plus I should have started my planning long before flight season even began.

Even this fairly common Pearl Crescent was exciting to see as part of my growing year list.

So of course I think you can guess where I'm going with this: I'm already planning to do another Butterfly Big Year in 2016! Yep, it's addictive. I've already started plotting out my target parks for early species.

I'm hoping I can make it to 120 species this year, a pretty ambitious goal. Wish me luck! Maybe I'll even get down to southern Texas for the National Interpreter's Workshop in November, in which case I might even make it all the way to 200 species. No matter how many my final total, the search will be fun and I'll learn a lot.

This Atala was definitely the most exciting sighting I made all year. It was great to come back home and tell my friends at the Wings of Fancy live butterfly exhibit that I'd seen one in the wild, not just in captivity!

Don't toss those apple scraps-- make easy apple peel jelly!

 

Save the scraps and peels from making an apple pie, and turn them into a beautiful (and delicious) jelly

We always make apple pie at Thanksgiving. Usually my mom and I make a couple others as well: cherry, plus blueberry or peach. Apple is a given though, and for the past few years it's been my responsibility to peel and slice the apples. Seven or eight medium size apples go into the pie, and no matter how careful I am peeling and coring them, there's inevitably quite a bit of flesh that gets removed. 

I felt so guilty about discarding all this edible fruit.  I was sure there must be a way to make something out of the peels and cores, but had a hard time finding any suggestions. This year, though, I finally found a way to pull as much usefulness out of the peels as I could, courtesy of A Year Without Groceries: I made apple peel jelly!

I am amazed how simple the process was. You don't need to add any extra pectin, since there is so much pectin in the apples themselves. I have never made jelly or jam before, so was a little nervous about the process (especially with my family members all waiting to sample the results). It came out so well, though, I am considering making a big batch of apple butter or another pie when I get home, just to have peels to make more jelly!

Ingredients:

Apple peels and cores

Water

Lemon juice

Sugar

Cinnamon (optional)

Instructions:  

1. Put the apple peels and cores into a large pot, and fill with enough water to just see the water below the top peels.

I used a mix of apples in the pie and therefore in the jelly: Jonathan and Granny Smith. This jelly is very sweet so you probably want to include at least some tart apples.

 

2. Bring the water to boil and cook, uncovered, until the peels are quite soft. The water will turn a lovely shade of pink. 

We tossed the cooked peels outside for the birds and squirrels after straining the liquid. At home I would have added them to my compost pile.

 3. Now strain the liquid into another pot.  You want to use a fine-mesh strainer (not a colander) to make sure things like seeds don't end up in your jelly. Press the solids against the strainer to make sure all the juice is squeezed out. I'm pretty sure a bit of pulp made it through my strainer, but the jelly still turned out nice and clear.

You'll want a smaller pot for boiling down the liquid. It starts out looking fairly cloudy.

4. Measure how much liquid you have at this point. (I had 3 1/2 cups.) Add 1 TB lemon juice for every 2 cups liquid, and 3/4 C sugar for every cup of liquid.  I also added about 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

 Bring the liquid back to a boil. Watch closely; when it gets close to being done it starts to foam up. You don't want it to boil over!

As the liquid merrily boils away, you can see it starting to clarify already.

You have to boil the liquid for quite a while to reduce and concentrate it. I think my batch took about 40 minutes, but I forgot to check the time when I started, so I'm not sure exactly.  The temperature of the liquid has to get up to 220F and stay there for a while before it will jell. 

5. While the liquid is boiling, put some ice in a small bowl nearby and get a small spoon ready. Periodically scoop a small amount of the liquid with your spoon, then place the spoon on the ice to cool it rapidly. Once cool, tilt the spoon over the pot to see how runny it is. When you first start, it will be very runny. A little later it will start to get thick and syrupy but still pour off the spoon in an even stream. When the jelly is almost done it will be even thicker but still drip off the spoon. It's done when the chilled spoonful has solidified and doesn't form drips. 

You can see the level had reduced quite a bit by the time the liquid was ready to jell, and the color darkened and clarified.

 6. Now ladle the jelly into clean, sterilized jars. According to the original directions, you should put on sterilized lids and process in a water bath canner for ten minutes. I haven't yet overcome my anxiety about this step of canning, though, so I skipped it and am storing the jelly in the fridge.

I ended up with two small jars of jelly, plus a bit extra. Such a gorgeous color!

We tested the jelly by slathering it onto little baked scraps of leftover pie crust dough. Yum! The next morning we also had the apple peel jelly on toast and English muffins. 

Like I said, this was super easy to do. You get beautiful, delicious jelly from scraps that would otherwise be discarded. I hope you'll give it a try this winter, whether for your own household or as gifts for friends and family. Enjoy!

My Garden's A Mess-- I Like It That Way

This "untidy" wildlife garden provides important habitat for lots of small wild creatures.

My garden's a mess! Here's why that's ok.

Lots of garden books and websites talk about tidying your garden at the end of fall: cleaning up, removing dead and spent plants and debris, and so forth. I always used to feel guilty when I read those articles because I never got around to much outdoor tidying. But I've learned since then that you want to help wildlife it's actually important to leave quite a bit of deliberate mess in your winter garden. Hooray!

My garden beds are only ever tidy looking before anything has been planted there,
like these two new beds I added this fall.  They'll never be this "tidy" again.

What To Keep... and What to Discard

Of course it matters what you keep and what you don't. I'm not advocating complete garden anarchy here. You definitely want to clean up and discard any diseased plants, and you probably want to remove the more persistent weeds that are likely to survive through the winter. Otherwise you'll still have the same disease around in the spring, and those weeds will only be stronger for having slowly grown enormous root systems during the winter. Little devils!

You should, however, keep plenty of seedheads from your flowers so that winter birds can munch on them. My goldfinches love echinacea, for example. Also important are hollow plant stems. Many insects survive the winter by sheltering inside them, and birds like Carolina Wrens and Downy Woodpeckers love snacking on those little nuggets when they find them!

Plenty of seeds in this goldenrod for the finches, and I'm sure lots of tiny insects and spiders for wrens as well!

Leaf debris is important for your garden's health as well as the wildlife's. Not only will the leaves slowly decay over the winter, returning important nutrients to your soil, but many small creatures will shelter in them. Many moth species form their cocoons in the leaf litter, so if you're too assiduous in removing fallen leaves you might actually be removing your gorgeous moths as well!

Over the years plenty of fallen leaves have built up in this bed. I add to them by raking in leaves from my driveway or the road gutters. The natural mulch definitely helps my plants; I hope there are unseen creatures benefiting too.

Additions To the Messy Fall Garden: Structures and Shelters

I often also leave up some of the trellis structures I built, since many birds like to perch on them during the winter. My feeders get pretty crowded at times, and it's fun to see whole squadrons of finches and doves lined up on the fences and tomato frames waiting their turn. If you're participating in FeederWatch this season, like I wrote about here, you get to count all the birds attracted to your yard, whether they're actually on the feeder or just waiting. Bonus! If you didn't have any trellises in your summer garden, you could easily add some structures for the fall & winter.

This fence at the edge of my property is often full of sparrows waiting their turn at the feeder, or surveying the area before deciding it's safe enough to forage on the ground. You could provide similar benefits with something as simple as a twiggy branch or two stuck in the ground.

Some butterflies that overwinter as adults, like Commas and Question Marks, will shelter under loose bark to survive the cold. If your trellis was built from natural logs or branches, you might host a few butterflies too! Some wildlife gardeners also like to keep a loose brush pile to provide shelter in the wintertime. One of the most important things about building a brush pile for shelter is to make sure there are plenty of holes and access points for small creatures to enter. Chipmunks, shrews, insects, songbirds, and more might use your brush pile to escape cold, rain, and snow, as well as hide from their predators. In my wildlife garden beds I just leave lots of fallen leaves and debris for small creatures to use as shelter.

The tangles of sprawling wood aster provide plenty of cover for small sparrows, and also keep blooming quite late in the season, providing food for many honey bees and other insects.

So whether you're a lazy gardener, a newbie gardener running out of time, or even an experienced gardener just starting to get into this whole gardening for wildlife thing, relax! The stuff you don't have time to clean up from your garden this fall is probably better off left in place. You can even build new structures to add to your garden's habitat, like creating special log piles to give wrens a cozy place to hide from predators, or adding stumps with loose bark to shelter butterflies and other bugs.

I hope you enjoy sharing your garden with wildlife this fall and winter. What else do you do in the cold weather to make a welcoming home for birds, bugs, and other beasties? Leave me a note in the comments so I can try it too!