Tag Archives: backyard wildlife

Emergency Winter Help For Backyard Birds

February 17, 2021Birds, Conservation, Gardening, Outdoor Funbackyard birds, backyard wildlife, bird conservation, bird feeding, birding, helping wild birds, outdoor birds, Schnarr's Hardware, Schnarr's Hardware Company, St. Louis Master Gardeners, winter bird feedingchasenfratz

Yesterday my husband was off work on a snow day, and one of the activities we did together was watch a webinar on winter birding. There were questions at the end about how to make sure our backyard birds are taken care of during the current harsh winter weather.

In my garden are a lot standing plants with seed heads that are still pretty full, so backyard birds that can eat those kinds of seeds can always get food. There is a pond heater that I bought from Schnarr’s Hardware, where I work part time, that keeps a melted hole open in the surface ice of our pond as long as I periodically remove the layer of drifting snow, so our birds have a steady supply of water too. What we were reminded of in the webinar is that all birds can’t eat all varieties of seed, and some birds who depend more on fruit and insects may be going hungry right now. As emergency help, I hastily prepared a couple of bowls of extra food – some sliced oranges, chopped apples, peanut butter, jelly, cat food and a little extra seed. As extra protection against the food getting covered up with snow, you can put such bowls under a shelter of some kind, or in a feeder that has a cover. At Schnarr’s we also sell dried mealworms and suet cakes and feeders, which most birds love and are especially beneficial for heavy insect-eating birds that need protein.

Eastern Bluebirds, the Missouri State Bird, are an example of a heavy insect-eating species that needs a lot of protein. In the suburbs where I live, it’s not easy to get this sought after but not very common bird into a backyard to view because they are highly impacted by habitat and food loss from human altered landscapes. However, I saw one in our neighborhood a few weeks ago so I’m happy to know there is some good habitat in the vicinity. There is a large cemetery nearby which probably helps a great deal.

Here are links to other articles I’ve written that might help you enjoy your backyard birds:

Make Suet Cakes for Outdoor Birds

How to Raise Mealworms For Your Backyard Birds

Are Starlings Taking Over Your Bird Feeders?

Gardening for the Birds

There are some recorded webinars on the University of Illinois Extension YouTube archive that have more information about backyard birding in the winter and many other great topics. Enjoy!

University of Illinois Extension videos

Enjoying My Home Grown Greens

September 21, 2019Conservation, Food, Gardeningbackyard wildlife, beneficial insects, cabbage worms, cabbageworm, caterpillars, cole crops, garden pests, gardening, good eating, growing greens, growing herbs, growing vegetables, hornworms, natural pest control, organic gardening, parasitic wasps, Schnarr's Hardware, Schnarr's Hardware blog, sustainability, sustainable gardening, tomato worms, vegetable garden, vegetable gardeningchasenfratz

Fresh picked salad from the backyard with cherry tomatoes, dill, arugula, chives, romaine, mustard greens, edible flowers and wild greens. I served the produce over cold edamame noodles.

I hope now that the ordeal with our rain garden is over Tom and I can start actually enjoying our garden! One of the many things we like about it is being able to pick fresh salads every day in season. I’m going to be really sad when it gets too cold to do this.

Since I took these photos, this monarch has hatched and is on it’s way to Mexico right now if it has not run into misfortune along the way. I’ve helped raise a bunch of caterpillars this year by providing habitat and I’m really happy about that!

Monarch butterfly caterpillar turning into a chrysalis over a 24 hour period.

Since I welcome caterpillars to my garden, I get species I really want as well as caterpillars that eat some of the greens I want to eat. One of my strategies is to plant enough to share. I also like to encourage beneficial insects that prey on garden pests.

Read more about it on the Schnarr’s Blog:
What is Eating My Mustard Greens?

Aquatic Macro Invertebrates at Litzinger Road Ecology Center

June 3, 2017Conservation, Gardening, Outdoor Funaquatic insects, aquatic invertebrates, backyard wildlife, crawdads, crawfish, crayfish, Deer Creek, Litzinger Road Ecology Center, LREC, Master Gardener Program, Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri Stream Team, Schnarr's Blog, Schnarr's Hardware, St. Louis Master Gardenerschasenfratz

Mother crawdad with babies — I used my childhood crawdad catching skills to hand-catch the most “Macro” invertebrate of the day – a large mother crawdad with tiny babies clinging to the underside of her tail. We released all the animals back into the water after we had a look at them.

Aquatic Macro Invertebrates are animals without a backbone that live in water and can be seen with the naked eye. I’ve had an interest in these creatures ever since I can remember. When I was young I caught a variety of water invertebrates such as water beetles, clams, crawdads and snails and attempted to maintain them in my aquariums. I was thrilled when my brother’s aquarium started to grow hydra even though they predate on tiny fish, because I’d read about them but never thought I’d see any. I currently have small colonies of freshwater shrimp in three of my aquariums. Many aquatic invertebrates are insects that live part of their life cycles in water but have an adult flying stage.

When the Litzinger Road Ecology Center offered a training workshop for volunteers on how Aquatic Macro Invertebrates are used to monitor water quality, of course I had to attend. Master Naturalist and Stream Team member Cliff Parmer taught us some Aquatic Entomology facts then we went outside to Deer Creek to learn how to take a scientific sample of water invertebrates.

Read more on the Schnarr’s Blog: Aquatic Macro Invertebrates at Litzinger Road Ecology Center

How to Raise Mealworms For Your Backyard Birds

March 15, 2017Conservation, Gardening, Tutorialsbackyard bird feeding, backyard birds, backyard wildlife, beetle larvae, dried mealworms, Eastern Bluebird, how to raise mealworms, insect life stages, larvae, live food for birds, mealworm beetles, mealworms, pupae, raise your own bird food, Schnarr's Blog, Schnarr's Hardwarechasenfratz

Life stages of the mealworm beetle in my hand – one larva, two pupae and one adult

Late winter and early spring are good seasons to attract desirable bird species to your yard. Birds are not brooding eggs yet because they need to wait until later in spring when there is enough insect food to feed their young. However, they are now engaged in, well, getting engaged! In other words many birds are scouting out nest sites and selecting mates if they haven’t done that already. Some of the most sought-after backyard bird species are heavy insect eaters. Raising live mealworms is so easy, I started by accident!

Read more on the Schnarr’s Hardware blog:
How to Raise Mealworms For Your Backyard Birds

Gardening for the Birds

September 22, 2015Conservation, Gardeningbackyard birds, backyard wildlife, bird conservation, bird gardening, Bring Conservation Home, butterfly host plants, ecology, gardening, invertebrate conservation, native plants, Saint Louis Urban Farm & Sustainable Development Group, St. Louis Audubon Society, sustainabilitychasenfratz

In Feburary, I attended a lecture “Naturescaping: Gardening for the Birds and their Friends”, sponsored by the The Saint Louis Urban Farm & Sustainable Development Group. The speaker was Mitch Leachman, Executive Director of the St. Louis Audubon Society and coordinator of their Bring Conservation Home program.

I’ve been gardening partly to benefit birds for over 10 years now. I’m not allowed to have bird feeders where I live, but I can provide a water feature and plants that help provide food, shelter and nest materials. I also have permission from the Condo Association for a nest box, which was used by Carolina Wrens this past summer. I refrain from using pesticides to help ensure that the bugs in my garden are safe for birds to eat. Like a lot of people, I am also interested in invertebrate conservation, so I have planted several species of plants specifically to be used as host plants for butterflies and as habitat for beneficial insects.

Upcycled Butterfly Feeder

September 10, 2015Conservation, Gardening, Upcyclingbackyard wildlife, butterfly conservation, butterfly feeder, butterfly gardening, butterfly habitat, DIY, garden wildlife, insect conservation, invertebrate conservation, Schnarr's Blog, Schnarr's Hardware, schnarrsblog.com, sustainability, wildlife gardeningchasenfratz

When I got a new dishwasher this spring, I decided to get rid of my broken garbage disposal rather than purchase a new one. When it was working, I rarely used it anyway since I composted almost anything that would normally go down it. In a way it’s kind of a bad habit because I already have more than enough stuff but I do enjoy saving odds and ends of things I might be able to re-use and seeing if I can make them into something useful. My Dad installed my new dishwasher for me and removed the old garbage disposal and he gave me several ringlike parts that he thought I might be able to use for something. One of them fits perfectly a glass part of a broken fountain/mister that someone else gave me.

Carolyn Hasenfratz Design

Living the creative life with art, design, crafts, gardening, home decor and more!

Tag Archives: backyard wildlife

Emergency Winter Help For Backyard Birds

Enjoying My Home Grown Greens

Aquatic Macro Invertebrates at Litzinger Road Ecology Center

How to Raise Mealworms For Your Backyard Birds

Gardening for the Birds

Upcycled Butterfly Feeder