There’s many a metaphor about life waiting in the backyard, as I ponder the flux of good years for roses, raccoons and tomatoes, bad years for June bugs, lilies and maples, and those things that seem to be fine every year, rain or shine, heat or cold, like ants, violets and squirrels.
The ebbs and flows of nature hang in an overall balance, as a blighted time for one species provides another with abundance. Sometimes, unrelated things flourish simultaneously because they thrive in the same conditions. When one species feeds on another, plentiful prey in one year leads to plentiful predators the next. Humans are increasing in numbers as we reap the environment for anything we need to sustain us. As we run out of some things, like fossil fuels and various metals, nature’s balance would say this forebodes a downturn of the human population.
Back in the backyard garden, I see native species, invasive species, cultivated species. Trees, shrubs, plants, insects, birds and animals (including an orange cat, a small bunny, a possum, and a raccoon family of momma and a litter of four [whatever you call small raccoons] – ah, kits.
Is it important how the various species got there? While all living creatures are wonderful, it is their nature that determines their toll on a new environment.
Domestic cats have won our hearts and brains, though they’re essentially an invasive species, successfully colonizing North America, and the Internet. But they do damage to the local bird population. And rodent population, if they feel like it, but that’s generally considered a good thing. Bunnies and raccoons are native species that have adapted to our civilized habitat. We feed the raccoons with our kitchen waste, mostly involuntarily, and the bunnies have worked out a diet that includes our cultivated lawns and gardens. Harmony is possible, as long as all are provided for.
We tend to think of invasive species as bad, because they run amok, taking more than a fair share of available resources while choking out native species, which are good. Native species know how to survive without exhausting resources in the local environment, along with everything else that knows how to survive in the local environment. Cultivated species are inbetween. They may require more resources, but are less prone to taking over. And they make pretty flowers and staple foods.
The concept of weeds has roots in these distinctions. Weeds are plants that take over, undesirably. Or just aren’t as desirable as what the gardener has in mind. They grow where they want, in sidewalk cracks and eavestroughs and between train tracks, not where they are planted by humans. Still, they don’t have any trouble propagating, unlike fussy cultivated tea roses or exotic fruits and vegetables. In nature’s balance, native weeds have purpose. For decades dandelions were considered obnoxious, to be rooted out of the suburban lawn (in NA) at all costs or risk the scorn of neighbours, bylaw officers and more. Recently, it’s been decided (by whom is difficult to say, but seems to be a widely held consensus) that dandelions can stay. They are early flowers, providing the pollinators food when other flowers are just budding, then receding politely into the lawn when they’re done feeding the bees. Like a wet nurse for bugs.
Then there’s the birds. The full suite of domestics in my ‘hood: blue jays, robins, starlings, grackles, cardinals, morning doves, sparrows, little woodpeckers, juncos, chickadees, finches, crows and a recent addition of a red tailed hawk. Generally, the birds blend into the neighbourhood, except for the occasionally nest placement leading to too much guano or dive booming.
Are there invasive bird species? It doesn’t enter the conversation much. Bird appreciators generally embrace all comers to the feeder, except squirrels because they’re greedy and destructive, despite being native to my area. Google wisdom finds no ‘invasive’ birds in my area, just introduced and nuisance birds such as house sparrow, pigeons and Canada goose. As a country, should we be embarrassed we have a strong association with an invasive bird1? It’s totally not Canadian to be loud and needy. In fact, our national bird is the grey jay. Ever seen one? I haven’t. Low key, anonymity, that’s Canadian.
Nature, when allowed to be herself, balances. Everything has its purpose, and eats something while being eaten by something else (not usually at the same time). This is perfect balance and has given us the foundation for the ‘circular economy’. The circular economy is a concept whereby businesses have no environmental footprint because the products they sell are reclaimable after use and completely recycled into more products.
Abundance echoes along the food chain, so does scarcity. If conditions in the previous year favoured the abundant proliferation and survival of one species, say bunnies, then the next year might favour the abundant proliferation of coyotes or hawks, i.e. them that feed on bunnies.
I wonder what the point of vines is. They climb around other things, and if the things are plants, choke them out by stealing all the sunlight and maybe water depending on root placement. This seems counter productive to me: if you require something to cling to, it’s best not to kill it. Many of the vines in my yard are considered invasive species. In their defence, some produce berries to feed the birds and wee rodents.
Chipmunks, despite being a rodent like mice, rats and squirrels, are infinitely cuter than the others, although they can still be destructive. In my yard, they fill their cheeks with whatever. A lot of the time the whatever is bird seed, but I’ve seen them plucking baby eggplants and peppers from the plants too. Like squirrels, chipmunks bury foodstuffs. When I was a child, we were told this was so they could dig it up later, when they were hungry. In the grander scheme of things, it results in distributed replanting of the habitat. Except when it’s birdseed harvested from commercially grown grassland/prairie crops, which aren’t native. I wonder though, do the chipmunks get bummed out when their stash of seeds, that they were saving for when they get the munchies one cold November day, sprout into grass or eggplant in August?
The June bug food chain: I didn’t notice one late night window collision this year. Nor did I see any grubs when turning over my vegetable patches, or the divots in the lawn left by skunks digging for grubs for dinner. The skunks will be hungrier this year, but what lead to fewer June bugs? Traditional knowledge would suggest less food, but I can’t find any more specific info than June bugs like to eat trees and shrubs, and then roots while in the grub stage. There has been no shortage of leaves or roots in my backyard, but perhaps the specifics are important.
Nature tells that when a species becomes overpopulated, it is may enter a time of decline from insufficient food resources, or a proliferation of predators. The standard answer to where humans are in the food chain is at the top. We have no predators. Let me suggest that we do – micro-organisms. Well, COVID suggested that. What about black mold, that is proliferating in a combination of cheap building materials, cramped living spaces and extreme climate change and can cause human illness.
Back to the backyard metaphor: our habitat is complex and that’s a good thing. In Canada, we’ve come to a point where all of us, humans, animals, birds, plants and bugs, live in an environment with those that have invaded, been welcomed, or are native to the area. Each of us have the ability to adapt, which constantly shifts the equilibrium, threatening some, favouring others.
Nature knows that all creatures have a role to play in maintaining a good environment for all creatures. This may be the most important thing I’ve learned in the backyard today. Diversity makes nature resilient, providing alternative resources to supply the needs of all. We humans have the greatest ability, opportunity and responsibility to slant the balance towards protecting and nurturing as much diversity as possible. Eh?
1 It looks like the Canada goose was never our ‘official’ bird, but certainly has been featured on a few stamps, coins and displays in flagship malls.