10 Ways to Help Birds: Number 6 — Cut out the pesticides

We’ve made a list of 10 things you can do to help birds, and we’re counting them down one day at a time until Earth Day, April 22.

April 17, 2021 — Pesticides are poison, plain and simple. If you apply pesticides to your property to kill insects, you’re killing the food that Connecticut’s birds rely on.

And while you might think you’re targeting mosquitoes or ticks, you’re also killing butterflies and bees of all sorts – Connecticut has over 300 species of native bees!

Everyone laments that summer nights are now largely devoid of lightning bugs. Pesticides are among the reasons there are so few.

So if you must use pesticides, use them carefully and in a limited area (for ticks, follow the CDC guidelines, for example). Or cut out the use of pesticides completely.

With Earth Day approaching, this is a really simple and effective action to take.

If you’re wondering how you can maintain your property without pesticides, join us the evening before Earth Day for the final presentation in Young, Gifted, and Wild About Birds.

Dr. Desiree Narango ,of UMass Amherst, will talk about “The birds, the bees, the flowers and the trees: Creating habitat for wildlife in our cities and suburbs.”