A European Robin feeds a caterpillar to its chick. A common sight in English gardens, this epitomises animal impactWhat is Animal Impact? Without wildlife, Earth would not be habitable for humans, because it's animals that stabilise ecosystems. It’s a fundamental law of nature that animals (and humans) exist because we are the most likely lifeforms to minimise environmental chaos. Animal impact, therefore, is a measure of how much all wildlife is collectively responsible for creating a habitable Earth. The More in action. Gardens are ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More. Even urban settings can be among the last refuges for some species and help maintain global ecological balance. This is the importance of bird life in your garden.
Economic patterns of bird behaviour
Next time you’re watching birds in your garden try observing where they go and how connected they are to you. Your environment shapes where they move. In your case planting lettuce might attract protein-rich caterpillars.
But it’s not simply the shape of the landscape, or what you make it, but your activity within it that counts. That creates the behaviour of other animals. In this way, you are the animal megafaunaThe largest animals that represent the top of the trophic pyramid. These are the final building blocks in ecosystem structures for maximum entropy production. Megafauna can be measured at any spatial scale. The largest animal that ever lived on Earth is the Blue Whale. In a grassland, spiders could be considered megafauna The term is generally reserved for animals larger More, interacting with the birds. When you dig soil the birds are ever-vigilant, eyeing your activity, and swooping in to claim worms. For thousands of years your kind have depended on each other.
When you’ve finished garden work the garden bird returns to its routine. It flits between hotspots in its territory as surely as you commute to work and visit the same supermarket. In key locations – where it feeds, nests and sings – it deposits the nutrientsEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More which become concentrated in patches. This propagates more animal life and enriches the soil.
In a year the bird with whom you have an ecosystem relation will have covered your garden hundreds of times more often than you. It will have created an invisible framework to support hundreds of other species. The mulch it helps build retains water, its guano fertiliser grows food and it keeps caterpillar numbers under control, so your lettuce grows healthy.
A healthy garden has animals in the right abundance
As for the caterpillars, they do the same, but on a smaller scale. A healthy garden has a balance. One or two humans, 10-20 birds, thousands of caterpillars, hundreds of thousands of nematode worms, millions of bacteria. Use pesticide or mow too often, or at the wrong times, and you throw this structure into oblivion. Remember, the least-messy ecosystems don’t look neat and tidy. Our idea of what is ‘neat’ is actually messy from an ecological perspective.
Respect garden wildlife and you nurture a mutually-beneficial relationship forged over thousands of years. The importance of bird life in your garden is that we share our fate with the animals around us. They are key to our survival.
Image of European Robins: CreativeNature_nl. Stock photo ID:972785150.
