                            THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, December 25, 1994              TAG: 9412270225
SECTION: HOME                     PAGE: G1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ROBERT STIFFLER
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   74 lines

BIRDS FEAST ON INSECTS THAT THWART GARDENERS

IF YOU WERE a chickadee, more than 90 percent of your diet would be insects. Their menu includes moths, beetles, weevils, caterpillars, flies, aphids, scale, leafhoppers, tree hoppers and true bugs. These little foragers are especially valuable, because they snatch up many of the smaller bugs, eggs and larvae that bigger birds miss.

In winter, chickadees will search crevices of tree trunks for insects and eggs. In New York fruit orchards, chickadees ranked number one in pear psylla control; one chickadee can consume 1,000 pear psylla per day.

Wrens and other birds are one of the best insect controls you can have in your garden. The University of Maryland recommends that commercial nurserymen do all they can to attract birds to their growing fields. Birds are the least costly and best natural method to control bugs.

To keep chickadees around your garden in winter, provide suet in a mesh bag or a feeder full of sunflower seeds. In spring, provide a nest box packed with wood chips at the edges of your garden.

Wrens are considered the No. 2-ranked bird for insect control. Most search trees, shrubs and vines for caterpillars, grasshoppers, snails, beetles and millipedes. Wrens are not particular about nesting and will readily nest in most boxes.

Swallows are third on the list for insect control. Though they have a reputation for eating mosquitoes, they also eat all flying insects, such as flies, beetles, moths and grasshoppers on the wing.

Although in short supply in this area, bluebirds rank fourth as insect eaters. They feed almost exclusively on beetles, weevils, caterpillars, snails and sowbugs.

Phoebes, ranked fifth, are stealthy hunters that wait on low branches and swoop down to snap up insects.

Native sparrows, not pesky house sparrows, are also desirable in your garden. The sparrows you want are song sparrows, field sparrows and chirping sparrows.

Other birds among the Top 10 insect feeders are vireos, woodpeckers, nuthatches and nighthawks. Interestingly, all 10 of the best insect-eating birds are among the most interesting and colorful to watch.

On dreary winter days, homeowners and nursery owners could make good use of the time by building boxes to encourage beneficial birds.

Stanton Gill of the University of Maryland notes that one nesting box does not fit all birds. It is important to get the right dimensions for the birds you want to attract, especially the diameter of the entrance hole. Otherwise, the wrong birds move in and displace the birds you want.

Nest boxes can be made from bottle gourds or unpainted cypress or cedar. The box should have good drainage and should not have a perch. A perch is an invitation to predators.

The benefits that birds bring are more than worth the minor effort it takes to encourage them to build their homes in your garden or nursery. I'm making a New Year's resolution to do more to attract birds to our garden next year. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

ROBERT LASHLEY

Wrens are the second-best bird for eating insects, searching trees,

shrubs and vines for bugs.

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