Wildlife Watch

Chemical Free Lawns Our lawns should be kept chemical free, and mown less frequently. Rob Moir of the Ocean River Institute of Cambridge, MA has studied lawns and bees. He found in a study he conducted in Springfield MA this past May that “lawns mowed every three weeks instead of weekly resulted in as many … Read more

Birds need native trees. Laura Tangley and Desiree Narango worked for three years as interns for Professor Doug Tallamy, Professor of Entomology at the University of Delaware. They studied how nonnative trees in cities and suburbs affect birds. In Laura Tangley’s  National Wildlife Federation article titled “Why Birds Need Native Trees”, she noted that 80% … Read more

Bees are  keystone species in the web of life. The presence of bees in our yards and open spaces is essential to the pollination and flourishing of our plants, and thus to our own lives. Dick Callahan, legislative director for the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association states that around the world, 40-50% of insect species are declining. … Read more

What It’s Like To Be a Bird Just as most gardeners love to read seed catalogs in spring, most bird watchers enjoy reading bird books. There is a new bird book just published, by artist David Allen Sibley, called “What It’s Like to Be a Bird”. This is a beautiful book of Sibley’s outstanding paintings … Read more

Birders often refer to little brown birds as LBB’s or LBJ’s (“little brown jobs”). They can be extremely confusing to identify, but seeing them at your bird feeder gives you a chance.The LBB’s we most often see at feeders in Westford are the sparrows: Song Sparrows, American Tree Sparrows, and Chipping Sparrows. True sparrows have … Read more