We left fifty feet of a dead tree standing and the woodpeckers dug holes all over it! That's the tree in the last movie of this compilation. My first reaction, I guess, would be to let the woodpeckers do the digging. They're experts. But I should ask why you'd like to do that: what birds do you hope will use the hole? Do you have the right habitat for Screech Owls? Bluebirds? Tree Swallows? Everybody has the right habitat for Starlings, and they would love for you to do that. 😉
Better your tree than your house, they peck on our gutters every spring. They did last year and not started back yet, hopefully they wont maybe bugs in the gutters like lady bugs or something?
Question: Have you been able to divert their interest to man-made birdhouses, placed nearby, thus room for all and more importantly, no damage to live threes (My old birch is almost falling now) or the human nest, aka owner's legal, paid property?! I have heard placing a bird's nest with the right size entrance and then filling it with wood dust to be removed by these engineers may be considered home for them.
Glad you enjoyed the movie. I took a look at your channel and enjoyed the Nuthatch on bark butter. My husband puts out bark butter for the birds too. Nice music selection on your Nuthatch vid too.
Actually, you could literally do that, Allen--at least for several days. I think I must be coming up on 250 films. I'm just pleased that you watched this one. 😏
This is some fascinating footage, seeing the battle at the end over a nesting hole is something I never imagined happening. Thank you for sharing this, thumbs up!
So you can imagine my surprise when I set the camera up on that woodpecker hole and went in the house for half an hour. When I viewed the film, I was flabbergasted! What a gift for a novice videographer.
Amazing capture Jo!! seeing both woodpeckers fight AND seeing their beaks in each others grasp is a one in a lifetime shot! Wonderful images! Also loved to see and hear the drumming and calls of the Flickers and Red-bellied!
Thanks, Cathy. It did take a good long while to collect the footage for the first two movies. And as for that last film, you're right: once in a lifetime. I had seen some activity at that hole, so I set the camera up on it an went into the house for half an hour. Came back and found the battle Royale on my memory card. What a gift for a novice videographer!
So much wonderful information. WE are getting the Woodpeckers now, had a few hits on the gutter this weekend. begins haha. @7:00 - 7:30comparison to Drum Sets is great! The gutter sure has a certain sound when they hit them.
I had never seen Northern Flicker until about 2years ago one appeared in my front yard. I had to quickly look up what kind of bird this was. He had made a nest on my property somewhere because I heard him all spring and most of the summer. I tried to find his nest but never did. I now have a Red-bellied Woodpecker who has been cmaking a nest on my property for the past 2years. I see the male and female every day. They love the peanuts I put out for them and the 6 (3pair) of BlueJays I have. Such beauties!! I would love for the Flicker to come back, maybe he will one day. LOVE YOUR CHANNEL !!!❤❤
I get your enthusiasm for these two woodpeckers. Last season, a Flicker took to searching for ants in our driveway cracks (I even did a short movie about it), and he's back at it this year. And I've watched a male Red-belly hitching up and down a tree in our woods feeding a begging youngster. Now that was fun! I hope you spotted this movie about Starlings trying to take a Red-bellies nest: ua-cam.com/video/D8qjm-wTZ6s/v-deo.html. If not, I know you'll want to check it out. Thanks for commenting, Donnaleigh, and especially for telling methat you love my channel.
Jo Alwood, it is great to see you putting out more compilation videos of your previous shorter productions! I've noticed that nearly all of your 10+ minute compilation video have done quite well in viewership. So excellent to see! :-)
I'm delighted to hear from you, Scott. It's been awhile. Yes, despite the length, the viewer numbers haven't suffered. I've played around with my schedule and recently committed myself to one film every Tuesday--with a long film every six weeks. Don't know if I can sustain that pace and still do the quality I want, but I'm going to try. I've been wanting to ask you: is there a way to tell where my movies show up on the UA-cam recommendations on other computers than mine (without actually getting on someone else's computer)?
@@JoAlwoodBIRDSANDTHENSOME Yes, in the analytics area for your videos you can find a section called "Traffic sources". When using your computer and looking at the graph for a specific video just below the graph and to the left is a "see more" link. Click that and then a new area will open up where you will have a "traffic source"' tab that will show where your viewership is coming from. :-)
As you must have suspected, Scott, I pay little attention to the analytics part of the channel: I have an English teacher's brain, and graphs give me heebie-jeebies. But I'm eager to check out what you explained. Thank you.
🌈 Hearing from my viewers and responding to their comments is a pleasure. Unfortunately I must forgo answering comments for awhile because the rotator cuff tear in my left arm is healing slowly, and I just learned that I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm. I seem to have a body made out of spare parts. So I won’t be answering comments before the beginning of August, if then. But if there’s something you’d like to tell me, please do so. I’ll be interested in what you have to say. It’s just that you’ll have to guess at what I would have answered. (I’ll be pasting this answer to every comment I get for the next few weeks.)
I have a trio of Yellow Shafted Northerns that frequent my back yard, even now as winter approaches. They seem to find lots of food in my yard - it's covered with anthills! As usual, I love your style of narration! And yes, I too like the videos that are a bit longer.
I wonder if anthills provide food in the winter. What part of the country are you in, Maggie? Anyway, you're lucky to have regulars like that in your yard. We get them but not as often as I'd like. I'm interested in hearing that you like the longer movies. Obviously, plenty of people do or I wouldn't be getting as many views as I do. Just so you'll know, I publish a new movie every Tuesday now and a long one every six weeks.
Jo Alwood, as to your question about how it was counted how many ants a flicker has eaten (5,000) this would generally be done by weight. A flicker would first be weighed and then allowed to eat ants, afterwards it would be weighed again. The difference in weigh divided by the average weight of an ant will tell us approximately how many ants have been consumed. On another point I have a suggestion for your, in the intro and transition areas I strongly recommend adding some light/generic instrumental background music to fill in the blank areas. :-)
Your explanation about the weight of ants and Flickers makes sense. I just can't help wondering why anybody would go to all that trouble. 🤷♀️ It wouldn't float my boat, but we're all different. I debated putting music in the blank areas, but since the music of the first two films was so dramatic, I thought that light/generic would seem out of place. It's a valid point, though, Scott, and I'll keep it in mind for the future. Thanks.
We have the Northern Flicker here in the Sierra Nevada foothills where I live. About a month ago I counted six of them on top of one of the oak trees, it was a beautiful sight. Great video 😘
Excellent Jo! Very informative. I watched the same thing happen in my neighbors yard last spring with starlings and red bellied woodpeckers. I loved the third video, had me giggling at the duel....
Thanks for all of the info! I never realized that Flickers will head southward in the winter. I usually don't feed birds much in the summer and I've always wondered why I never saw Flickers at my feeders during the winter.
That is an extraordinary video capture and exactly the way I have seen Woodpecker and Starling interactions occur. Documented as well between 2006 and 2016 on my farm near Reelfoot Lake Tennessee. Starlings ganged up on a pair of Red-Headed Woodpeckers. I shot and killed about 17 Starlings and they just kept coming, bullying in small groups against a pair of woodpeckers until woodpeckers gave up. Thanks for sharing. Dan
Well, I've never shot any Starlings, but I get it! You'll want to watch the movie I made about Starlings ganging up on a pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers. ua-cam.com/video/D8qjm-wTZ6s/v-deo.html
That was great and so interesting about their tongues! Here, in my region, is one of the rare spots in Canada (other than along the coast) where Flickers don't migrate south for winter. The drama at the end surprised me - hanging onto each other's beaks - who knew? Strangely, your starlings look remarkably larger than the ones in southern BC.
Our Starlings are larger? Interesting. You might type "starlings Alwood" into the UA-cam search box and see if the Starlings in other movies I've made strike you that way too. All too often I find size tricky to judge, but I'm not saying you're mistaken. It's certainly possible that there's a size difference.
I enjoy seeing the flickers feathers as they fly away. The white tuft is s is a sure way to identify this bird . I also, enjoy seeing the flicker tap tapping on the ground . This was a wonderful informative movie . The flickers are lovely birds 🤗🤗
Many's the time I've seen a white patch on the rump of a departing bird and known, therefore, that it must be a Flicker. Yes, they are lovely--and just generally interesting in a dozen different ways.
Thank you so much for the video! I have a pair of Flickers nesting in a tree in the front lawn. A starling did trouble them but they kept the hole. I have grackles which I despise as much as starlings and they are gobbling the suet like crazy! Their young are basically eating on their own, so I hope they leave by the time the Flicker's eggs hatch.
Do the upside down suet feeders work well? I know my father made one for his birds probably 15 yrs ago. Or longer. I thought it was clever. He may have seen it in a Birds and Blooms magazine. Idk.
Wow... That was a fight and a story! I have seen exactly the same in my place too but the third one who claimed the nest, Home! was a pair of beautiful swallows in early spring. I didn't see their chicks so can only guess that inevitable cruel end! Hope these Europeans or natives use more logic, understand each other, and the value of tolerance!
Were they Tree Swallows? Because I know that they nest in cavities and that they're the earliest swallows to return each spring. ua-cam.com/video/RlEZK7zRN6U/v-deo.html
Haha. Reminds me of the time we heard a Screech Owl whinnying when we were sitting on the patio. My granddaughter rushed over, big eyed and yelling, "Nana, Nana, a horsie, a horsie."
I'm sorry, but European Starlings and English Sparrows are non-native, invasive species that do not belong here. Every year I have had to chase off the House Sparrows, who are known to attack, mutilate and kill Eastern Bluebirds, the noblest of all American songbirds. They are truly proof that God loves the world, for there are Bluebirds in it. While I certainly can't take credit for their perseverance, a dedicated nest boxing program has contributed greatly to a renaissance for the great Eastern Bluebird and I am proud to have participated. I have personally been host to 10+ years and multiple clutches of this remarkable bird. There is no more beautiful blue in all of nature than that of the Eastern Bluebird. Great video!
My husband and I tried, some thirty years ago, to build lots of bluebird boxes and lure those birds into our suburban neighborhood. Apparently, we're in the wrong place; it didn't work. But good for you for keeping at it and succeeding. As for your dislike of the Starlings and House Sparrows, you're in the supermajority among bird lovers. And I share some of your dislike. But I try to remember that we brought those birds here, and that doing so was a minor sin compared with all the environmental depredations we've committed that have eviscerated wildlife populations. And finally: glad you liked the video!
I do hate them, and I don't. I resent the fact that they're here and wish I could give a blistering earful to the fool that brought them to this hemisphere. Then again, I know that they're just one of nature's creations trying--too successfully--to survive.
They are too successful, and they do just want to survive. However, I won’t give up in fighting them(I’m not saying you are giving up). But we should not stop trying to fight lion fish or cane toads or other invasive species. At the same time, we need to stop destroying habitat for birds or other wildlife in general.
Okay, Adair, now I feel as if I'm talking to someone who sees the problem from a similar vantage point to my own. I know that invasive species can do great harm. The Asian Carp has eaten so much of the fish population in the Mississippi that gull numbers are a tenth of what they were thirty years ago because the gulls have so few minnows to feed on. But I see the main culprits as destruction of habitat, pesticides, and climate change--all of it our doing (as are the invasive species, in fact).
Great footage and narration! Thanks for sharing :)
Thank you for commenting, Anki. I appreciate the compliment.
We left fifty feet of a dead tree standing and the woodpeckers dug holes all over it! That's the tree in the last movie of this compilation. My first reaction, I guess, would be to let the woodpeckers do the digging. They're experts. But I should ask why you'd like to do that: what birds do you hope will use the hole? Do you have the right habitat for Screech Owls? Bluebirds? Tree Swallows? Everybody has the right habitat for Starlings, and they would love for you to do that. 😉
Better your tree than your house, they peck on our gutters every spring.
They did last year and not started back yet, hopefully they wont maybe
bugs in the gutters like lady bugs or something?
If they do start it up again, just comfort yourself that you're helping them find a mate.
Question: Have you been able to divert their interest to man-made birdhouses, placed nearby, thus room for all and more importantly, no damage to live threes (My old birch is almost falling now) or the human nest, aka owner's legal, paid property?! I have heard placing a bird's nest with the right size entrance and then filling it with wood dust to be removed by these engineers may be considered home for them.
@@samsen3965 I hadn't heard of placing wood dust in a bird house. Interestng idea. You seem to know more about the topic than I do.
Great video! Northern flickers are awesome-definitely one of my favorite birds!
Glad you enjoyed the movie. I took a look at your channel and enjoyed the Nuthatch on bark butter. My husband puts out bark butter for the birds too. Nice music selection on your Nuthatch vid too.
Thank you so much!!
Outstanding video! THANKS!
You’re welcome, Ken. I loved filming these striking birds.
You do a bang up job! Wow!@@JoAlwoodBIRDSANDTHENSOME
@@kooale I love to hear that. Thanks, Ken.
I could listen to your brand of nature video all day!
Actually, you could literally do that, Allen--at least for several days. I think I must be coming up on 250 films. I'm just pleased that you watched this one. 😏
Just had my first pair of Northern Flickers visit my yard today!!! Such a treat. Thanks for posting video.
This is some fascinating footage, seeing the battle at the end over a nesting hole is something I never imagined happening. Thank you for sharing this, thumbs up!
So you can imagine my surprise when I set the camera up on that woodpecker hole and went in the house for half an hour. When I viewed the film, I was flabbergasted! What a gift for a novice videographer.
Amazing capture Jo!! seeing both woodpeckers fight AND seeing their beaks in each others grasp is a one in a lifetime shot! Wonderful images! Also loved to see and hear the drumming and calls of the Flickers and Red-bellied!
Thanks, Cathy. It did take a good long while to collect the footage for the first two movies. And as for that last film, you're right: once in a lifetime. I had seen some activity at that hole, so I set the camera up on it an went into the house for half an hour. Came back and found the battle Royale on my memory card. What a gift for a novice videographer!
Another great set of movies! Love those flickers! The beak grabbing I’ve never known about.
Thanks, Berta. I especially like that word "another"! No, I haven't seen the beak grabbing any other time either.
So much wonderful information. WE are getting the Woodpeckers now, had a few hits on the gutter this weekend.
begins haha. @7:00 - 7:30comparison to Drum Sets is great! The gutter sure has a certain sound when they hit them.
I had never seen Northern Flicker until about 2years ago one appeared in my front yard. I had to quickly look up what kind of bird this was. He had made a nest on my property somewhere because I heard him all spring and most of the summer. I tried to find his nest but never did. I now have a Red-bellied Woodpecker who has been cmaking a nest on my property for the past 2years. I see the male and female every day. They love the peanuts I put out for them and the 6 (3pair) of BlueJays I have. Such beauties!! I would love for the Flicker to come back, maybe he will one day.
LOVE YOUR CHANNEL !!!❤❤
I get your enthusiasm for these two woodpeckers. Last season, a Flicker took to searching for ants in our driveway cracks (I even did a short movie about it), and he's back at it this year. And I've watched a male Red-belly hitching up and down a tree in our woods feeding a begging youngster. Now that was fun! I hope you spotted this movie about Starlings trying to take a Red-bellies nest: ua-cam.com/video/D8qjm-wTZ6s/v-deo.html. If not, I know you'll want to check it out. Thanks for commenting, Donnaleigh, and especially for telling methat you love my channel.
Thanks Jo! I am always learning from your videos.
Jo Alwood, it is great to see you putting out more compilation videos of your previous shorter productions! I've noticed that nearly all of your 10+ minute compilation video have done quite well in viewership. So excellent to see! :-)
I'm delighted to hear from you, Scott. It's been awhile. Yes, despite the length, the viewer numbers haven't suffered. I've played around with my schedule and recently committed myself to one film every Tuesday--with a long film every six weeks. Don't know if I can sustain that pace and still do the quality I want, but I'm going to try. I've been wanting to ask you: is there a way to tell where my movies show up on the UA-cam recommendations on other computers than mine (without actually getting on someone else's computer)?
@@JoAlwoodBIRDSANDTHENSOME Yes, in the analytics area for your videos you can find a section called "Traffic sources". When using your computer and looking at the graph for a specific video just below the graph and to the left is a "see more" link. Click that and then a new area will open up where you will have a "traffic source"' tab that will show where your viewership is coming from. :-)
As you must have suspected, Scott, I pay little attention to the analytics part of the channel: I have an English teacher's brain, and graphs give me heebie-jeebies. But I'm eager to check out what you explained. Thank you.
My gosh those poor woodpeckers.
I am in love with your videos, i can just sit on my front porch, listening to you all day long. Thank you!!
🌈
Hearing from my viewers and responding to their comments is a pleasure. Unfortunately I must forgo answering comments for awhile because the rotator cuff tear in my left arm is healing slowly, and I just learned that I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm. I seem to have a body made out of spare parts. So I won’t be answering comments before the beginning of August, if then. But if there’s something you’d like to tell me, please do so. I’ll be interested in what you have to say. It’s just that you’ll have to guess at what I would have answered. (I’ll be pasting this answer to every comment I get for the next few weeks.)
I have a trio of Yellow Shafted Northerns that frequent my back yard, even now as winter approaches. They seem to find lots of food in my yard - it's covered with anthills! As usual, I love your style of narration! And yes, I too like the videos that are a bit longer.
I wonder if anthills provide food in the winter. What part of the country are you in, Maggie? Anyway, you're lucky to have regulars like that in your yard. We get them but not as often as I'd like. I'm interested in hearing that you like the longer movies. Obviously, plenty of people do or I wouldn't be getting as many views as I do. Just so you'll know, I publish a new movie every Tuesday now and a long one every six weeks.
Jo Alwood, as to your question about how it was counted how many ants a flicker has eaten (5,000) this would generally be done by weight. A flicker would first be weighed and then allowed to eat ants, afterwards it would be weighed again. The difference in weigh divided by the average weight of an ant will tell us approximately how many ants have been consumed. On another point I have a suggestion for your, in the intro and transition areas I strongly recommend adding some light/generic instrumental background music to fill in the blank areas. :-)
Your explanation about the weight of ants and Flickers makes sense. I just can't help wondering why anybody would go to all that trouble. 🤷♀️ It wouldn't float my boat, but we're all different. I debated putting music in the blank areas, but since the music of the first two films was so dramatic, I thought that light/generic would seem out of place. It's a valid point, though, Scott, and I'll keep it in mind for the future. Thanks.
We have the Northern Flicker here in the Sierra Nevada foothills where I live. About a month ago I counted six of them on top of one of the oak trees, it was a beautiful sight. Great video 😘
Six of them?! I’m seriously jealous.
Excellent Jo! Very informative. I watched the same thing happen in my neighbors yard last spring with starlings and red bellied woodpeckers. I loved the third video, had me giggling at the duel....
Oh, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it so much, Lisa--except ...how dare you giggle at their serious duel?!!! They'd be offended. 😉
Thanks for all of the info! I never realized that Flickers will head southward in the winter. I usually don't feed birds much in the summer and I've always wondered why I never saw Flickers at my feeders during the winter.
You're pretty far north? We get them in the winter here in Missouri?
I LOVE your videos...excellently edited, excellently narrated!!! A great source for info also, My wife and I love watching. Keep up the GREAT WORK!!!
That is an extraordinary video capture and exactly the way I have seen Woodpecker and Starling interactions occur. Documented as well between 2006 and 2016 on my farm near Reelfoot Lake Tennessee. Starlings ganged up on a pair of Red-Headed Woodpeckers. I shot and killed about 17 Starlings and they just kept coming, bullying in small groups against a pair of woodpeckers until woodpeckers gave up. Thanks for sharing. Dan
Well, I've never shot any Starlings, but I get it! You'll want to watch the movie I made about Starlings ganging up on a pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers. ua-cam.com/video/D8qjm-wTZ6s/v-deo.html
Loved this 3 part series! very informative but even more entertaining. Thanks for sharing!
I appreciate the comment. My basic job is to inform, but I'm never content unless I also entertain.
Wacka- Wacka Jo! That's what they sound like. Merry Christmas!
Ah, "wacka-wacka". Of course. Why didn't I think of that? 👌 And Merry Christmas to you, Teresa.
Amazing footage Jo! Thanks SO much for sharing!
My pleasure, and thanks for your praise.
Beautifully amazing!
Yes, indeed, Laura, like that tongue that wraps around their skulls? And that laps up 5,000 ants in one sitting? Beautifully amazing.
That was great and so interesting about their tongues! Here, in my region, is one of the rare spots in Canada (other than along the coast) where Flickers don't migrate south for winter.
The drama at the end surprised me - hanging onto each other's beaks - who knew?
Strangely, your starlings look remarkably larger than the ones in southern BC.
Our Starlings are larger? Interesting. You might type "starlings Alwood" into the UA-cam search box and see if the Starlings in other movies I've made strike you that way too. All too often I find size tricky to judge, but I'm not saying you're mistaken. It's certainly possible that there's a size difference.
I enjoy seeing the flickers feathers as they fly away. The white tuft is s is a sure way to identify this bird . I also, enjoy seeing the flicker tap tapping on the ground . This was a wonderful informative movie . The flickers are lovely birds 🤗🤗
Many's the time I've seen a white patch on the rump of a departing bird and known, therefore, that it must be a Flicker. Yes, they are lovely--and just generally interesting in a dozen different ways.
Thank you so much for the video!
I have a pair of Flickers nesting in a tree in the front lawn. A starling did trouble them but they kept the hole. I have grackles which I despise as much as starlings and they are gobbling the suet like crazy! Their young are basically eating on their own, so I hope they leave by the time the Flicker's eggs hatch.
I love to listen to your narration. Keeps it interesting. Very nice footage as well. Thank you. :)
And thank you for that nice compliment, Shane. I appreciate you letting me know.
I chuckled and learned some new words. What a great 1st video to watch. Well done
Thank you, Matt. That's what I aim to do: entertain as I teach.
Great as usual Jo! Thanks!
Chuck, I like knowing you're out there enjoying each new movie. Thanks for commenting.
Do the upside down suet feeders work well?
I know my father made one for his birds probably 15 yrs ago. Or longer. I thought it was clever. He may have seen it in a Birds and Blooms magazine. Idk.
What do you think of the idea of me drilling out a bird nesting hole in a dead standing cherry tree?
Wow... That was a fight and a story!
I have seen exactly the same in my place too but the third one who claimed the nest, Home! was a pair of beautiful swallows in early spring. I didn't see their chicks so can only guess that inevitable cruel end! Hope these Europeans or natives use more logic, understand each other, and the value of tolerance!
Were they Tree Swallows? Because I know that they nest in cavities and that they're the earliest swallows to return each spring. ua-cam.com/video/RlEZK7zRN6U/v-deo.html
First time Katie and I saw our woodpeckers....Katie shouted..NANA , we got Zebra birds!!@
Haha. Reminds me of the time we heard a Screech Owl whinnying when we were sitting on the patio. My granddaughter rushed over, big eyed and yelling, "Nana, Nana, a horsie, a horsie."
Aren't grandkids AMAZING!
I'm sorry, but European Starlings and English Sparrows are non-native, invasive species that do not belong here. Every year I have had to chase off the House Sparrows, who are known to attack, mutilate and kill Eastern Bluebirds, the noblest of all American songbirds. They are truly proof that God loves the world, for there are Bluebirds in it. While I certainly can't take credit for their perseverance, a dedicated nest boxing program has contributed greatly to a renaissance for the great Eastern Bluebird and I am proud to have participated. I have personally been host to 10+ years and multiple clutches of this remarkable bird. There is no more beautiful blue in all of nature than that of the Eastern Bluebird. Great video!
My husband and I tried, some thirty years ago, to build lots of bluebird boxes and lure those birds into our suburban neighborhood. Apparently, we're in the wrong place; it didn't work. But good for you for keeping at it and succeeding. As for your dislike of the Starlings and House Sparrows, you're in the supermajority among bird lovers. And I share some of your dislike. But I try to remember that we brought those birds here, and that doing so was a minor sin compared with all the environmental depredations we've committed that have eviscerated wildlife populations. And finally: glad you liked the video!
Ahhh. Fresh sawdust!!!
Fresh sawdust smells like home to. woodpeckers.
I have video of a hawk getting a flicker. After the fact. They were on the ground both still alive and the hawk won.
I'm jealous, Jason. That's footage I would like to have had when I made this movie or my movie about Cooper's Hawks.
Remember: It’s ok to hate European starlings and house sparrows.
I do hate them, and I don't. I resent the fact that they're here and wish I could give a blistering earful to the fool that brought them to this hemisphere. Then again, I know that they're just one of nature's creations trying--too successfully--to survive.
They are too successful, and they do just want to survive. However, I won’t give up in fighting them(I’m not saying you are giving up). But we should not stop trying to fight lion fish or cane toads or other invasive species.
At the same time, we need to stop destroying habitat for birds or other wildlife in general.
Okay, Adair, now I feel as if I'm talking to someone who sees the problem from a similar vantage point to my own. I know that invasive species can do great harm. The Asian Carp has eaten so much of the fish population in the Mississippi that gull numbers are a tenth of what they were thirty years ago because the gulls have so few minnows to feed on. But I see the main culprits as destruction of habitat, pesticides, and climate change--all of it our doing (as are the invasive species, in fact).