permaculture

[Claude Genest <genest@together.net>]

Thanks Steve,

This option is quite popular around here, but I'm afraid it plays into the
"best and ONLY the best " mentality that seeks to "solve" the problem
without recognizing that the apparent "problem" is in fact only a
symptom.... 
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bats, but not instead of a healthy
population of songbirds. And best as I can tell ( hence the need for
corroborating evidence) this Spring is as Silent as they've all been for the
last fifty years, and if it hadn't been for Miss Carson's book, I doubt I'd
ever have noticed that this is NOT NORMAL !

Regards,

Claude

> From: Steve Diver <steved@ncatark.uark.edu>
> Reply-To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 13:37:42 -0500
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Songbirds.....
> 
> Claude Genest wrote:
> 
>> Anyway, in re-reading "SILENT SPRING", the late great RAchel Carson makes
>> the observation that there's no better pesticide than songbirds, the very
>> creatures that have been decimatd  by chemical pesticides ( they eat the
>> worms that ingest the pesticides)
>> 
>> I'm looking for some stats/info on the decline of songbirds...Any leads ?
> 
> Try bats!!   Here's a recent post from Sanet.
> 
> Habitat management for birds and bats and beneficial insects,
> i.e., PLANNED BIODIVERSITY, is a very practical and
> realistic approach.
> 
> Steve Diver
> 
> ===================================================
> HOLY GUANO, BATMAN, HERE’S THE LATEST IN INSECT CONTROL
> With a grant from the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the
> North American Bat House Research Project has established 45
> bat houses on 10 organic farms in central Calif.  In their first 90
> days of operations a third of the houses were occupied by
> Mexican free-tail bats and the bats quickly began work as
> insect predators.  Their favorites are armyworms, cutworms,
> corn earworms, leafhoppers and codling moths. Other
> bat varieties the housing project hopes to attract include
> predators of cucumber beetles, stinkbugs and other small
> beetles and moths.  For more info on bat houses go to
> http://www.batcon.org/bhra/index.html or email rrooney@batcon.org.
> 
> Source:
> ============Willard Thompson’s Field Talk==================
> For the week of Nov. 5, 2001
> Field Talk is a weekly e-newsletter published by Rincon Publishing,
> Publishers of California Grower magazine.
> Field Talk is a copyright publication of Rincon Publishing.
> ================================================================
> Field Talk
> http://www.rinconpublishing.com/Fieldtalksample.html
> ================================================================
> 
> 
> 
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