Dr. Claudia Dunkley, Extension Poultry Scientist,
will speak at
South Georgia Growing Local 2014
about
Basic information for beginning a backyard flock including: breeds, housing, nutrition, egg production and biosecurity.
Her conference bio: Continue reading
Student Naturalist Beth Grant will speak at South Georgia Growing Local 2014:
In his book Bringing Nature Home, Dr. Doug Tallamy explains
how everyone who loves the wonders of the natural world can contribute to the survival of our native birds, butterflies, and other treasures by providing the native plants needed to support them. Beth Grant has recently obtained permission from Dr. Tallamy to present his slideshow on his findings. By acting on Dr. Tallamy’s practical recommendations, you can make a difference for bio-diversity while bringing endlessly fascinating wildlife to your home. Handouts will be provided. Copies of Bringing Nature Home and Dr. Gil Nelson’s Best Native Plants for Southern Gardens will be available for purchase with all proceeds going to Birdsong Nature Center.
Here’s her conference bio: Continue reading
The bag of clothes pins hanging on the line is inhabited:
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2013-07-06.
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We like our beaver pond, but the beavers are a bit too ambitious.
Here’s how they operate.
Haemig PD (2012) Ecology of the Beaver. ECOLOGY.INFO 13,
The forest beside the stream also changes after beaver occupation. When beavers cut down trees for food and for building their dams and lodges, they select the species of trees that they prefer, and leave other tree species standing. Consequently, after many years, the forest beside a beaver pond is usually dominated by different tree species than it was before beaver occupation, and in the gaps where the beavers removed trees, bushes and saplings now grow and with them the animal species that live in the early stages of forest regeneration (Barnes and Dibble 1986; Johnston and Naiman 1990;
Pastor and Naiman 1992; Donkor et al. 2000). In addition, when the beaver pond is formed by the dam, water floods and covers the roots of trees that formerly stood along the stream bank. These flooded trees die because the standing water prevents their roots from getting air….
In Wyoming, a survey showed that owners of private lands believed that they benefited from beaver engineering because Continue reading
Movie: Red shouldered hawk (6.8M):
Picture and video by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms,
Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 July 2013.
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Nature is not something
out there, apart from people.
It never was, and nowadays people have built and farmed and clearcut
so much that wildlife species from insects to birds are in trouble.
In south Georgia people may think that our trees make a lot of wildlife habitat.
Actually, most of those trees are planted pine plantations with
very limited undergrowth, and in town many yards are deserts of grass
plus exotic species that don’t support native birds.
Douglas Tallamy offers one solution:
turn yards into wildlife habitat by growing native species.
Since we are as always remodeling nature, we might as well do it
so as to feed the rest of nature and ourselves,
and by the way get flood prevention and possibly cleaner water as well,
oh, and fewer pesticides to poison ourselves.
Douglas Tallamy makes a clear and compelling case in
Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants
…it is not yet too late to save most of the plants and animals that sustain the ecosystems on which we ourselves depend. Second, restoring native plants to most human-dominated landscapes is relatively easy to do.
Some of you may wonder why native species are so important? Don’t we have more deer than we can shoot? Maybe so, but we have far fewer birds of almost every species than we did decades and only a few years ago.
Some may wonder: aren’t exotic species just as good as native ones,
if deer and birds can eat them?
Actually, no, because many exotic species are poisonous
to native wildlife, and because invasive exotics crowd out natives
and reduce species diversity.
From kudzu to
Japanese climbing fern, exotic invasives are bad for wildlife
and may also promote erosion and flooding by strangling native vegetation.
All plants are not created equal, particularly in their ability to support wildlife. Most of our native plant-eaters are not able to eat alien plants, and we are replacing native plants with alien species at an alarming rate, especially in the suburban gardens on which our wildlife increasingly depends. My central message is that unless we restore native plants to our suburban ecosystems, the future of biodiversity in the United States is dim.
Tallamy had an epiphany when he and his wife moved to 10 acres in Pennsylvania in 2000:
Continue reading 
In today’s episode of The Tractor Naturalist, a doughty quail dares the mighty machine to catch it! Well, either that, or quail are just not very smart. I thought this Colinus virginianus might run ahead all the way to the house.
See the bobwhite run! Would it have run faster if Brown Dog and Yellow Dog had been chasing it? Caution: this video is loud.
Colinus virginianus
John S. Quarterman, Gretchen Quarterman,
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 August 2012.
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Do you hear anything upstairs?
Do you hear anything upstairs?
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 July 2012.
Maybe over there?
Continue readingWe had to take down one dead tree, but there are others for the woodpeckers. Well, people keeping telling me this oak is dead, but I say it's only been a few years, and it's going to sprout out again any time now:
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 June 2012.
Dead pine:
Continue reading