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Several years ago a friend
asked me to look at a plant in her garden. I thought
it lovely, delicate, interesting. But just looking
at the plant made her angry. “I don’t
believe I paid good money for that! In Denmark (her
native country) it’s a WEED!” What some
value, others find contemptible and seek to destroy.
Of the many natural foods I gather for the fledgling
goldfinches in my care, several will be familiar to
most – ragweed, dandelion, thistle, and goldenrod.
In fact, American Wildlife & Plants: A Guide To
Wildlife Food Habits, by Martin, Zim, and Nelson,
lists ragweed and thistle as three-star foods for
goldfinches (10-25% of their diet). And they aren’t
the only wild neighbors that value these plants. Ragweed
is valued as food by 164 species, mostly birds. Nineteen
of these species use ragweed as 10% to 50% of their
diet.
A large weed with purple berries, pokeweed is a popular
food for songbirds this time of year. I gather and
freeze it so that, during winter, birds brought to
the clinic will have a natural food they recognize.
It is often the first thing they will eat.
Then there’s poison-ivy. Sixty-six species,
mostly birds, use poison-ivy berries for food with
26 species using it as an important part of their
diet (2% - 25%).
And the list goes on. So many of the plants we despise
and seek to eradicate by mowing, digging or spraying
are, in fact, valuable food plants to our wild neighbors.
When we take away their natural food plants we may
compensate, to some degree, by landscaping with plants
that appeal to us and provide food for them –
at least for some of them. But species such as the
white-crowned sparrow and the common redpoll depend
on ragweed for about 50% of their diet, and little
in our cultured landscape will compensate for its
loss or for the loss of other weeds. So if you have
a spot in your yard, hidden from disapproving eyes,
perhaps you can leave a few natural food plants for
our wild neighbors.
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