NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

Advice generally given to writers is that they should write about what they know. So I’m going to write about being sick. The past few days, I’ve certainly gotten to know that subject pretty well. Maybe “well” is a poor choice of words here.

I seem to have some sort of virus, but I’m not sure what kind. If this is swine flu, it’s the world’s mildest case. I don’t feel all that bad, um, except for the feverish, achy feeling and the touchy tummy. But this thing has lasted too long to be an ordinary gut flu, which normally disappears in a day. Whatever I have doesn’t seem to be too contagious, though, as Vic shows no symptoms.

I first had this bug shortly after I returned from Utah about three weeks ago. No, I haven’t seen a doctor. What’s the point? They ask if you’ve ever had this before, and when you say yes, they tell you that you have it again.

I haven’t strayed far from home the past few days, but have spent a lot of time on the back porch, reading, rocking and contemplating my navel. When I haven’t been sleeping, which I’ve been doing for inordinate stretches of time, I’ve had ample opportunity to really enjoy our yard.

Butterflies galore flit from flower to flower. In the past few days, I’ve seen monarchs, painted ladies, mourning cloaks, Western swallowtails, and checkered whites. Or are those white ones merely cabbage moths? Honeybees, carpenter bees and paperwasps abound, as do hoverflies. Ladybugs and lacewings hide among the petals of the many flowers. Beyond these, I’m unable to identify the other flitting, flying, crawling, creeping denizens of my garden.

I do better with birds than bugs. Chasing all of these wonderful insects this spring are a pair of hooded orioles, the most colorful addition to our yard in decades. Hooded orioles have a connection to palm trees. And that brings to mind a tale of palms and orioles.

A few years back, the Friends of Shipley Nature Center cut down the non-native palm trees at the nature center. That was a good thing to do to restore Shipley to a fully native plant palette. The palms were Mexican fan palms, a pest plant in wetlands. They are native to Mexico. The only native California palm is the Washingtonian palms that grow in the desert in wild oases in Palm Springs, Twenty-nine Palms, etc. Not the ones planted in the city of Palm Springs. Those too are Mexican fan palms, or queen palms, or date palms, or some other non-native palm.

Then last summer, the California Department of Fish and Game cut down the non-native palms at the Bolsa Chica. The only possible bad thing about that is that hooded orioles like to nest in Mexican fan palms. But the rationale for cutting the palms was that hooded orioles and Mexican fan palms are plentiful enough around town, and the non-native palms had no business in a native habitat. The palms went and the orioles moved.

Luckily for Vic and me, a pair of hooded orioles moved to the palm trees in one of our neighbor’s yards. The male is exceedingly bright yellow, with a black throat. The female is a duller greenish yellow. They’ve both been very busy in our yard, hunting insects to feed their babies. In a couple more weeks, we should see their fledglings in our yard, assuming that crows don’t raid the nest.

I was so excited about having orioles in the yard that I put out an oriole nectar feeder a few weeks ago. This is similar to a hummingbird feeder, except the colored parts are orange instead of red and the openings are designed to fit an oriole’s bill. Orioles enjoy oranges and sugar water, so an orange-colored feeder is supposed to attract them. It does. They drank it dry in no time. If you’d like to get an oriole feeder, or attract other kinds of birds, go see Jan Smith at Wild Birds Unlimited on Beach at Adams. She can set you up with just what you need to have panoply of backyard birds all year long.

We also have black phoebes in our yard, feeding on free-flying insects. We have both Allen’s and Anna’s hummingbirds coming to our hummingbird feeders as well as eating insects. Hummingbirds will raid spider webs to get a quick and easy proteinaceous snack. Actually, at this time of year, almost all birds, even the seed-eaters, supplement their diets with insects for added protein to feed their babies. In our organic yard, it’s pretty easy for them to find bugs. There are an amazing number and variety of insects out there that flash in the sun. The birds couldn’t be happier. And we’re happy that our bugs are safe for the birds to eat because they haven’t been sprayed with poison.

Vic and I are strong believers in having an organic yard with no herbicides, no insecticides and no chemical fertilizers.

Our garden is fertilized with organic fertilizers, weeds are pulled by hand, and any undesirable insects are battled by various means. But because we have so many birds, we really don’t have pest insects in our vegetable garden. This is nature in action, nature at her balanced best. This is the way the world is supposed to work.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].