CONSERVATION OVER THE TELEPHONE
Richard Orr, the Tribune reporter, called me one day about bronze grackles. It seems that the Chicago Tribune, in their "Day by Day on the Farm," had told about the grackles on the Tribune farm. A Tribune reader wrote in, expressing surprise that grackles were permitted on the Tribune farm and gave details of destruction by grackles of other birds, personally observed. What were the facts of the case? Should grackles be tolerated? Or should they be eliminated? Orr wanted to know.
This is the sort of question that is difficult. It is important, too, for it involves basic conservation issues. And there is no sharp, clear-cut yes-or-no answer. The question as to the grackle's character reminds me of the character of Moses, as explained when I was in school by a professor of the Bible: The black was there and the white was there; Moses was a character sketch in gray. And so with most creatures. They're both good and bad from our standpoint. Grackles certainly do kill other birds at times, and interrupt the nesting of some of our favorite songbirds. And yet, liking birds as I do, I tolerate them in my garden. On a trumpet vine on our garage in Chesterton, Indiana, one year we had a grackle build its nest on top of a domed English-sparrow nest. The young of both sparrows and grackles hatched about the same time, and the two families, within six inches of each other, were successfully raised without friction between the parents.
Quite evidently grackles are not always killers of other birds. As to robins or grackles being the "better" birds, if we had a robin's nest that we prized, and the grackle killed the young in it, the grackle would be "bad." But if we were an inquiring farmer, and had to weigh the grackle against the robin, we might find the grackle "good" and the robin "bad." The grackle feeds its young vast quantities of insects harmful to the gardener; the robin sometimes seems to specialize in earthworms. Earthworms are beneficial to man, passing through the earth, making air and water more accessible, and, by passing earth and vegetable matter through their intestines, enrich the soil.
The house wren that warned the Tribune reader when the grackles were about is often prized as a garden bird; it is bold, saucy in appearance, and a vigorous songster. But it is also well known as a quarrelsome bird, prone to punch holes in the eggs of its neighbors, and it also may fill up with sticks nesting boxes so that other birds cannot use them.
The above was the gist of what I told Orr, and appeared in the May 5, 1950, Tribune.
Thinking of it afterwards, as is usual, I thought of many other things I could have said, and perhaps made more clear that no bird is all good or all bad, from our human point of view. Their relationships with the rest of the landscape are complex. I like to see butterflies flit about my garden. But butterflies are caterpillars at one stage. And caterpillars may eat some of the things in my garden. But some birds feed on caterpillars. If I eliminate the caterpillars because they eat the plants I like, at one stroke I eliminate the source of the butterflies I like, and food for some birds I also like.
Perhaps the partial answer, if answer there be in this imperfect world, is summed up by moderation: I can have some butterflies, some caterpillars, some plants, and some birds in my garden. If one becomes too abundant and interferes with the others, I prune it. Maintaining some sort of a balance, we can have some of each.