By Burt Glover

One of my favorite pastimes is sitting on my porch observing the individual facets of the surrounding landscape — the birds, lizards, the sky, plant life, and various insects, bees and wasps. I also watch people.

I try not to be judgmental when I see the neighbor “neatening up” his yard by chopping down the hedgerow of gnarly, volunteer saplings, weeds and vines on his property line. This hedgerow was once refuge and habitat for many of the neighborhood birds. I would watch the daily goings-on of the towhees, sparrows, brown thrashers, mockingbirds and cardinals as they cavorted in and out of this long hedge. These days, the now-tidy property line is still and quiet. The birds are gone. I wonder if my neighbor notices their absence.

Many days per week, while venturing outside, I can smell, not the scent of wildflowers, but the smell of the neighbors’ clothes dryers — the heavy odor of artificial fragrances that permeates the neighborhood air. I think of the 25+ volatile organic compounds pouring from the dryer vents that I and every being in the vicinity are inhaling.

Manufacturers of laundry products are not required to list their ingredients. Studies on the effect to human health, (which is all anybody seems to be concerned about), reveal that many of the chemicals contained in these products act as carcinogens, respiratory antagonists, endocrine disruptors, and more. If it affects humans on a moderate scale, then what is it doing to the more susceptible creatures inhabiting this space? Who is monitoring the proverbial canaries in the coal mine?

Speaking of laundry, and it is certainly too lengthy a subject to broach here, but there is the matter of particulates, of micro- and nano-plastics. Many of these are released from washing and drying our plastic clothing (polyester, nylon, acrylic fibers). Sixty-percent of modern clothing is composed of plastics. Released, as well, are the particulates of PFAS — the “forever chemicals” used as stain guards and water repellents. These particulates have been found from the tops of the Himalayas, to the Arctic ice, to our household air. Curious readers can do an internet search on the study that determined how each of us ingests, through ordinarily breathing and eating, the equivalent of one credit card worth of plastic per week.

These particles contain not only the chemicals from their point of manufacture (bisphenols, phthalates, flame retardants, etc.) but also from the pollutants they readily absorb from the atmosphere before these particulates — hundreds of thousands of tons of the stuff — settle onto waters and land. These plastics are making their way into plants, fish, insects, soil organisms and our bodies.      

Sitting on my porch, I watch the towhees, phoebes, wrens, and chickadees picking through seemingly every square inch of my house perimeter searching for the spiders and insects that would hide there. And then I see the pest control truck at the next door neighbor’s house, dousing the entire lawn with pesticide, then fogging the air for mosquitoes.

Curious readers can do an internet search and learn about the “beneficial” (a purely human-centric term) ladybugs, spiders, butterflies, and many other non-target creatures that are sickened and killed on the wing and on plant surfaces by these pesticides.

Pest control companies offer lawn and perimeter “protection” to kill invertebrates on the ground, as well aerial fogging and misting to kill mosquitoes. Fogging and misting are two different methods. Fogging creates microscopic particulates that are designed to stay in the air for an extended period of time, whereas misting is designed to settle onto plants and other surfaces to kill the eggs, larvae and pupa.

An “advancement” in misting technology enables homeowners to have an automatic misting system installed, whereas, at regular intervals, the pesticides are sprayed through a series of nozzles strategically placed throughout the yard. For added convenience, there is a remote control feature to also produce spray on demand.

When these pesticides are doused onto the lawn or blown into trees and shrubs, they indiscriminately kill pollinators at various life stages; they kill earthworms and soil microbes critical to the web of life; they kill larvae, caterpillars, beetles, etc. that comprise the food supply for songbirds and their nestlings. Those surviving invertebrates that are merely sickened go on to potentially contaminate the food chain. This, in addition to the bioaccumulation and longer-term effects of these pesticides in toads, frogs, aquatic life and mammals, including humans.

Pesticide applicators are advised to wear respirators, as the spray is toxic. “Safe for pets and people,” they tell us, even as the studies and science on the effects to either can only be said to be in their infancy.

I sit, and watch and wonder. I’ve been doing this for enough years now that I can see the diminished numbers of bees, bats, toads and certain bird species. I read that bird populations have declined 30% since I was a teenager — 3 billion birds, gone. Insects have declined by as much as 40 percent, with one-third of the remainder in danger of extinction. Bees and butterflies are struggling. I am, of course, part of the problem. It’s all but impossible for a human to exist today without exerting negative impact on the natural world. I do try to mitigate the damages as I am able. I wish that my neighbors might do the same. 

My mind drifts back to the words of a song of my youth. “With every mistake, we must surely be learning… .” But are we?

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Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond.

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Audubon Society are good resources for sound information on the impacts of pesticide use on invertebrates and birds, and for alternatives approaches to pesticides.