Your white exterior lights are bad for the ecosystem - a quick fix to protect biodiversity inside:
If you aren’t ready or able to rip out your lawn and ornamentals and replace them with native plant material and other forms of wildlife habitat - there are small, easy, cost-effective things you can do to make your landscape more ecologically appropriate. Today, we are introducing one of the fastest, cheapest, and easiest on our list that we will continue to share in our upcoming future blog posts - so don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share.
Today’s tip - Respectfully pulled from Doug Tallamy’s most recent publishing How Can I Help? - is to switch all of your exterior lights from white to yellow. It has recently been discovered that the circling around light sources by insects is due to their Dorsal Light Response - an internal mechanism that predisposes insects to orient themselves to where the source of light (in nature - celestial light sources) is on their backs. This natural instinct to aid them in flying unfortunately causes them to circle aimlessly around your front porch light. - and distracts them from more important tasks - like sourcing food, being a food source for nocturnal predators, and even pollination. For roughly $6/light you can take a step towards a more nature-friendly landscape.
While we tend to focus our efforts and adoration on Butterflies for their symbolism, vibrant colors, and presence during the daylight - moths are extremely important for the ecosystem, and if you explore your local moth population - also quite beautiful. If you want to familiarize yourself with your local moth population, and we encourage that you do - try hanging up a white sheet outdoors with a light source in front of it (preferably UV and preferably in or close to a woodland) one evening after dark. Soon, you will attract moths that you can then get an up close view and/or photo of and utilize one of the many nature ID apps to confirm your species.
Small acts and improvements over time are a great way to slowly convert your traditional landscape into an eventual ecosystem. And when you are done - make sure you register it at Doug Tallamy’s co-founded organization Homegrown National Park at the link below:
https://homegrownnationalpark.org/
As always, no AI content here. Be nice - drink water.
-ALEKA JAED
POCKET MEADOW STUDIO
