This a.m. in the 100 acres behind our house I watched as the field was being sprayed to kill the untold thousands of ARMYWORMS marching across the ground. The field was mowed yesterday with the hay going for silage. Becky & I had watched on Mon. as the grass under our feet appeared to be moving as the worms "marched" across the ground. The leaves on the 4 1/2' tall stalks of grass were all but eaten away. Becky had seen thousands of the worms crossing Spring St. Rd. going from the hayfield to the grain field which was sprayed later on Sun.. She had no idea what the worms were & it has been many yrs. since I've seen them so I didn't remember.
This invasion will have terrible effects on crops & ON BIRDS. I saw many birds back in the field apparently feeding on the worms which already were beginning to die from the insecticide. According to the article posted on Face Book by Bill Hecht there is a shortage of Pyrethrin based sprays so farmers will have to make a critical choice about what to do/use to save their human & animal food crops. I wish Bill would post the link to the article on the bird list because I don't know how. The worms will soon become moths which will lay the second round of eggs that will hatch sometime in July. Gardeners .. beware ... these worms like your crops, too. For some of you ornithologists out there ... any thoughts about mortality expectations for birds eating the poisoned worms?? A male pheasant, probably just released, was running across the field last night. How long will he last? Monsanto doesn't have any "Round-Up Ready" crops for this invasion but I'm sure they have lots of poisons. Fritzie -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
