The oak-leaved hydrangea enjoys full sun to partial shade and moist, well-drained soil. The flowers are excellent for dried flower arrangements. Well before the summer garden is in flower and fruit the pest patrol is in place.

Each species of the corps of insectivorous birds checks in for duty with its own distinctive camouflage suit, weaponry, and style of combat.

The northern mockingbird flashes it wings to startle insects. The brown thrasher blends in with the underbrush tossing leaves and twigs with its beak in search of grubs. The grey catbird usually forages in shrubs for its prey but sometimes fly catches it. The eastern towhee does a double scratch dance in the lawn and leaf litter to find food. The Carolina wren probes crevices, nooks, and crannies with its slender bill. The wee but quick and energetic Carolina chickadee has a thick stout bill for picking up caterpillars, spiders, and insects. The ruby-throated hummingbird has a tongue with grooves on the edge making it easy to catch insects on the wing.

Hummingbirds consume any arthropod small enough to swallow - gnats, fruit flies, mosquitoes, aphids, thrips, caterpillars, ants, and insect and spider eggs. They raid spider webs throughout the yard and sapsucker wells on my pittosporum. They may perch on a branch and scout an area for insects. When spotting prey, the hummer will engulf the insect or "hawk" around an insect swarm consuming as many as 30 insects in one attack.

A battalion of woodpeckers -the yellow-bellied sapsucker, downy, red-bellied, and red-headed - are stationed on the trunks of trees creeping up while probing and drilling for boring insects. Brown headed nuthatches crawl up and down tree trunks using their beaks and sometimes a tool like a piece of bark to uncover invertebrate prey under bark and in crevices.

From dawn to dusk an aerial surveillance corps of chimney swifts scour the sky over my home for arthropods. At night they roost in my chimney, and by June they will be feeding regurgitated morsels to nestlings.

Three other species of insectivorous birds have set up camp on the property. In the front yard a pair of eastern bluebirds selected a nesting box facing an open area. The female made a cup-shaped nest from pine needles, bark strips, grass and weeds. Bluebirds feed on insects gleaned from foliage or may be seen sallying their prey. Sallying involves flying from a perch to the ground to snag an insect and then returning to the perch.

A female eastern phoebe has built her nest on a narrow ledge under the roof of my front porch. She used weeds, grass, hair, and mud covered in mosses and lined the nest with fine grass and hair. In the backyard a female titmouse fashioned a cup-shaped nest of leaves, bark strips, and mosses in a bluebird box. She lined the nest with dog hair, feathers, and plant down. At each nesting site I can expect two broods this summer, thus, increasing troop numbers and the chances for continued protection of plants on the property.

Is your avian arsenal ready for combat?

Arlene Marturano is a master gardener, writer, and educator. As an advocate of gardening as a tool for learning, she helped develop the Carolina Children's Garden at the Sandhill Research and Education Center. She is an education consultant with T.E.A.C.H.

marturano@yahoo.com