Pollinators, what are you going to do about them?

Especially when they've decided to take up housekeeping inside your home, or more precisely, in two boards on the siding beside our garage door.

They are mason bees, but frankly, given the crashing of the bee population, I"ll take any pollinator I can get. We are wondering that if we put a mason bee home nearby, and add some smoke, if they'll go to their new home and won't attack us in the process.

I don't want to kill them. When we've tried to recalk over the winter, they just chewed new openings and moved into the same panels .Smart bees. The bubbles meanwhile, have returned to my rosemary out front, as well as the comfrey, damn plant - it even bullies the blackberries to a draw - and the roses (a tea hybrid that hasn't had all the smell bred out of it.)

And real life honeybees, tho I'm not sure where they are coming from. I even hesitate to swat a wasp at this point.But what to do about the mason bees?

Great bird album

I'm not in the mood to think this weekend, or ponder the news of the loss of bird habitat explored in this BBC article. Or in a follow up, the loss of habitat in general.

Sigh. But I really got a kick going this this album of bird shots on this Web shots album. For those of you who would like to display your work, you should check this site out.

Watch your step

Many times I'm looking off at a distance or up, at the critters around me. But sometimes it pays to look down.

I was walking the dog on Scenic Hill this week, and noticed a brown stain (I thought) in the road, and I went over to investigate. When Kodi sniffed at it, the stain moved, in a wave. It was a bunch of brown ants (no, don't know the genus or species) moving in mass, from one burrow to the next just off the edge of Laurel Street.

They seemed to be backing each other, grooming each other, but all moving in the same direction around dusk (probably to keep from being eaten by birds. I'm pretty sure bats wouldn't land to eat).

I ran home to show my daughter this mass migration. She was not impressed.

"You brought me down here to show me this?"

Well, it's cool.

Be nice to sharks

It's not like I've ever seen one as I tromp up and down Des Moines beach this summer, or any other summer I've been there during my Beach Naturalist stint. However, I know, like all upper level predators, they are truly needed to keep the ocean in balance for the critters we DO see on the beach.

I'm a little frustrated with these stories however. What exactly can an individual do to save the sharks, aside from donating $$ to those org. that are working toward this goal? I get not eating shark fin soup (never been to any place that's had that on the menu anyway). But what else?

Neat finds from the beach

Just back from the last training by the Seattle Aquarium for the beach naturalists before we hit the beaches next week (mine's is at des moines beach, most weekends this summer, so come and say hi!).

This weekend, we were out, practicing or remembering again, what we knew last year, and came across some neat finds. One a baby moon snail (it was busy trying to ooze itself to safety, very slowly) and another was a welk, that was busy laying eggs, I think. But meanwhile it had a very pretty inner shell that I thought was cool.

More on the lecture night on invasive species tomorrow. With pictures!

Wonder Why You Never See Baby Sea Stars?

They might be hanging around under rocks (like we found at Des Moines Beach this weekend) or in the undersea mounds, with gushing warm water swirling around them, as this article notes.

I'll Be Looking for Both of These Critters This Summer

As I walk around Scenic Hill in Kent, or along the Green River Trail. I swear a heard an owl on one walk last summer, and it was the "hoot hoot" great horned kind of call. At first I thought it was kids playing, but no, it isn't.

Aside from looking up at the sky, I'll be looking down on the ground, for garter snakes. I haven't seen them in years, but since we're going organic in the back yard, I'm hoping to charm them back.

Neat Feature in the Olympian

Can across this on a search for all critters marine. The Olympian has a feature on critters in South Sound, this one being the sandfin sculpin.

Also, in case you missed it, read the great feature package in The Seattle Times today. It hits on target with what I've nagged on earlier. If we are truly going to be committed to cleaning up Puget Sound, we must start in our own back yard. Yesterday was on stormwater runoff (don't use weed and feed!) and today's is on wetlands.

It talks about how often, developers say they'll redevelop a wetland somewhere else, if they can destroy this one they want to build a warehouse on top of. Often, they don't even try, or if they do, the system is more about making the ground wet and planting a few alders.

Yes, They are Cute, but Don't Touch!

This story is from Oregon, but the same applies to Washington beaches. If you sea a seal pup looking all lonely on a sand spit-- leave it alone! It's mom will come back.

Osprey Rescued

Of course, sometimes, we actually do try to help animals, or birds, rather than shoot them.

Save the Salmon, Shoot a Seal

That seems to be the train of thought. And we're kidding ourselves. Even if we killed off the entire species between Seattle and LA, do you really think that the runs - which were once so thick, like the passenger pigeon, - no one ever thought they'd disappear - will come back.

It will take projects like this, at Titlow in Tacoma. It will take more classes like the one held in my Kent neighborhood, convincing residents near streams not to use Weed and Feed, not to use pesticides, not to dump whatever gunk they have in the garage down the drain.

First they try to remove the sealions from the Columbia, only to have one die, probably of stress. Then they find dead ones, shot by upset (take your pick) farmers, fishermen, etc. This brought some interesting comments on the NYT blog.

I'm afraid we're going to have to change our behavior, and tear down a few dams, cancel more than a few salmon seasons to save the fish folks. Shooting sealions isn't going to do it.

Drawing via the news tribune.

Wanna get rid of pests, drink lots of water, pee, repeat

That was basically the jist of a lecture I attended Wednesday night.

King County, the Woodland Park Zoo and the City of Kent was meeting up with about 100 of us from the Scenic Hill neighborhood, or basically anyone within spitting distance of Mill Creek, an alleged salmon stream. I have posted earlier about what Auburn was doing with the plantings down near Peasley Canyon.

This is apparently Kent's attack on the pesticides and pollutants that filter into the stream each year. Samples recently showed 23 pesticides, and urine samples (that theme keeps popping during the lecture, doesn't it) from kids, are showing the same pesticides, from the grass they play on.

So the advice was to NOT buy Weed and Feed. It's useless and mainly washes down the drain. Use organic fertilizer in August. (Walt's Organic Fertilizer or Corn Gluten were mentioned.)If you need to get the dandilions out, then pull them and reseed with grass in the hole. If moss is bedeviling you, then a. rake it out and b. reseed, or maybe just let the moss win in shady or steep areas.

This is an interesting NYT article on the topic.

Don't overwater the lawn and airate each year. Use ladybugs or praying mantises to take care of other bugs. Most bugs in your yard are beneficial, so don't try to nuke them.

Oh, and back to pee, if you want to keep gophers out of your yard, either put hair clippings down the hole or the urine of any male predator. Even if they walk on 2 legs and haven't had to kill their food since they accidently bit into a wormy apple. It apparently works.

I suggested my husband do this on the critter that keeps digging a hole into his green house and eating the orchids. I offered to be a lookout. All of course in the name of saving Mill Creek.

Moss on tennis shoes provided by the NYT.