To the editor:

I want to thank Spencer Webster for his excellent article on hummingbirds in the May 17 issue. His great photos capture the diminutive beauty of these tiny bold birds.

A quote from the hummingbird biologist, Dan Harville, grabbed my attention: discussing the hummers’ ongoing population decline, he said, “When people clear land, they remove the brush and shrubbery that hummingbirds forage and nest in.”

We see a disturbing trend as people move to Whidbey Island and build houses. Even when they don’t cut down the large trees, many people “park out” the understory, removing the dense native shrubbery and leaving an open landscape of woodchips with scattered ferns and rhododendrons.

This creates a relative biological desert. Our hummingbirds, sparrows, wrens, towhees, flycatchers and thrushes — many of our lovely singers and insect eaters — lose their nesting and feeding habitat. And bird populations decline.

Offering feeders with birdseed and sugar-water entices the birds out where we can see them and brings us joy, but it doesn’t meet their survival needs. They need insects to feed their young, shrubbery to shelter and nest in and the diverse landscape of native plants with which they have evolved.

We humans can also “kill them with kindness” if we neglect proper maintenance and allow our bird feeders and bird baths to become sources for spreading disease, or for encouraging invasive species such as cowbirds, house sparrows and starlings that out-compete native birds.

As we better understand the importance of wildlife habitat in an ever-more-fractured landscape, I hope we will increasingly adopt the concept of a gradation of landscape areas radiating out from the house, from the most specialized, high-use zone within roughly 30 feet of the home, to a more naturalistic area requiring less maintenance, blending into undisturbed wild areas where native plants dominate and offer high habitat diversity. [Details at the local library or bookstore in Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest by WDFW biologist Russell Link, a Clinton resident.]

Whidbey Audubon Society is dedicated to the protection of wildlife species and their habitats on Whidbey Island and surrounding waters.

To learn more about preserving wildlife habitat, keeping feeders clean and safe for the birds, and how you can get involved with protecting wildlife, go to our Web site at www.whidbeyaudubon.org.

From September through June we offer monthly public programs and frequent birding field trips. You can find a Whidbey birds checklist on the Web site or pick one up from your local library or wild bird store.

Sarah Schmidt

President

Whidbey Audubon Society