Wildlife Gardening: Grasses for birds, 1 by Equilibrium

Equilibrium wrote:
No, you're not necessarily wrong. Birds love nesting materials that's for sure. Here's my take on Miscanthus and you decide for yourself, it's an imported ornamental grass that sort of for lack of a better word repeatedly escapes the places where it has been planted. Usually it does so vegetatively but it can go to seed. That fluffy stuff the birds are hauling off contains seed. The Miscanthus is a genus that contains over 10 species that originate from Africa and Asia. There are many critters from Africa and Asia that depend upon this plant for survival. Many of the most attractive cultivars are knock offs of Miscanthus sinensis that is cold hardy and has a range that extends well into northern Asia. Extremely gorgeous plants, you bet. The stumbling block to some people who are trying to create habitat for North American critters is that Miscanthus has many adaptive traits that make it quite successful at out competing plants that the species of birds that visit our backyards depend upon for survival. I guess a good analogy would be the Koala Bear. Its diet consists exclusively of eucalyptus leaves and it lives most of its life on the tree other than to come down to get a drink every now and then. The Koala is an endangered species that is indigenous to Australia. The Eucalyptus Tree is indigenous to Australia. Over tens of thousands of years, these two species co-evolved to the extent that the Koala is incapable of digesting any other plant other than Eucalyptus. Loss of habitat to development and loss of the plants in the remaining habitat due to introduced species taking over has resulted in a decline in their numbers. Other factors present but these two are the main ones. Basically, there is less land for them to call "home" and what is left is no longer providing the "buffet" of days gone by. Australia faces many of the same problems we face over here. Lots of plants from other continents getting a little weedy and then there is the need to provide housing and such for humans which results in fewer natural areas. Space is not an unlimited commodity and when a species such as Miscanthus escapes and reproduces, it is doing so in areas that were once occupied by species that our critters co-evolved with. I think the State of Illinois is up to around 30% exotic species of total existing vegetation. Now add to this land we lost to population expansion and we have some issues too. Not insurmountable, but definitely worthy of our consideration given the species of animals on this continent all have specialized diets in order to survive too.

Here's a nice site that goes into a little bit more detail on the Koala-
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~endangered/koala.htm

Here's a nice site that has good photos of some weedy grasses-
http://www.eeob.iastate.edu/research/iowagrasses/weedy.html

Here's a photo I took of Miscanthus that a Farmer claimed went to seed from a neighboring subdivision and ended up in his 200 acre field. As you know, Miscanthus can grow at a rapid rate and gets pretty tall. When it ends up in a corn field, it reduces the sunlight hitting the corn plants and hence reduces their ability to photosynthesize. Miscanthus is also a water and nutrient hog. This farmer will have to use chemicals to eradicate the Miscanthus or it will reduce his yields yet on the other hand, some of the chemicals he will have to use will leach into our water tables and this property is located in an upper watershed management area. There is no choice but to use chemicals from a cost standpoint. Some plants negatively affect not only critters but us humans.