{"id":12494,"date":"2025-03-13T14:58:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T18:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/?p=12494"},"modified":"2025-03-13T15:25:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T19:25:58","slug":"delay-spring-yard-work-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebackyardnaturalist.com\/wordpress\/delay-spring-yard-work-please\/","title":{"rendered":"Delay Spring Yard Work, Please!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Less Yard Work For You Means More Caterpillars for Baby Chickadees<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Delay Spring yard work for now (or forever) to make a difference for a generation of your backyard birds.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you delay Spring yard work and leave leaf litter undisturbed for now, you’ll be giving your native insect populations their best chance to survive. Temperatures aren’t consistent enough just yet for them to emerge from beneath the layers of leaves that protected them all winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why protect the native insects in your yard? Because 96% of all wild bird parents will soon be looking for these insects to feed their babies.<\/strong> Not seeds, not fruit\u2014just insects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And nesting parents will need to find a mind-boggling quantity<\/strong> of insects to raise their families. Here’s just one example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carolina Chickadee parents need 5,000-9,000 caterpillars to nourish just ONE BROOD<\/strong>.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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One down, 4,999 to go (or more!). Carolina Chickadee hunting caterpillars to feed babies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Why make that job even harder for them? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can help, right now, by protecting and supporting the native insect population in our backyards.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Chickadees give us 5,000 good reasons to:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n