Re: black widows & wasps & rodents

**"* F* L* J* <l*@bellsouth.net>**

On 6/23/2012 1:31 PM, Tom wrote:
> Toads and frogs will also eat any spiders they can catch....toads are
> especially good for this. I would expect having a small water feature in the
> landscape that was attractive to toads....that that would help greatly to
> get their numbers up.
> I remember as a boy that toads in the garden were very common....but these
> days, alas, in most urban areas they are all too rare.

When I built my system of raised bed garden sites I terraformed my land 
and, though my soil is to permeable to hold water for long, built three 
wet weather catchment ponds, two of which nearly always have water in 
them with associated colonies of aquatic plants and ever-growing 
populations of four or five kinds of frogs, toads, dragonflies and other 
beneficial creatures.

> Enoles, if you're lucky enough to have them (none here in the west) will
> also eat plenty of spiders and other insect pests.
>
> Another though I never mentioned in the connected big chat about Groundhogs,
> gophers, etc....was that in many areas if one puts up a tall pole with a
> crosspiece on it....something that would be attractive to perching
> hawks...that often a resident red-tailed hawk or a red-shouldered hawk will
> use the perch often, and will hunt rodents from it. These can be almost as
> effective as barn owl boxes.

My fields have forests on their periphery with many tall pines and 
assorted hardwoods, dark and thick woods behind. I have plenty of hawks 
and owls (two species of each), bats, barn swallows, crows, doves (used 
to have quail) and an assortment of songbirds.

Thanks for all the great information, Tom.

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