Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
Pat Sutton lives near Cape May, New Jersey, the world renowned migratory crossroads that is famous for its hawk, owl, songbird, shorebird, and Monarch butterfly migration. She has keenly studied the natural world for 30 years.
Pat and her husband Clay's landmark book, Birds and Birding at Cape May, is the in-depth result of their efforts over many years documenting and protecting the migration and the hometown that they so love.
Pat and Clay Sutton together have co-authored How to Spot Butterflies, How to Spot Hawks & Eagles, and How to Spot an Owl.
Pat has been a working naturalist since 1977, first for the Cape May Point State Park and then for 21 years with New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory, where she was the Naturalist and Program Director.
Today, Pat and Clay are free-lance writers, naturalists, lecturers, and tour leaders. Pat is a founding Board Member of the North American Butterfly Association. She coauthored, with David Wright, CMBO's "Cape May County Butterfly Checklist" and the Cape May County butterfly site guide in Jeffrey Glassberg's Butterflies Through Binoculars.
She is a passionate advocate and wildlife gardener for (and photographer of) butterflies, moths, birds, and other critters. Articles and photography by Pat & Clay have appeared in New Jersey Audubon, Peregrine Observer, New Jersey Outdoors, Sanctuary, American Butterflies, Wild Bird, Bird Watcher's Digest, Birder's World, Birding, Living Bird, Defenders, and others. Check out Pat's Facebook page.
As spring unfolds it is always a special day when the first Monarch appears. Journey North tracks the first milkweed emerged, Monarch, egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis. In southern New Jersey our first Monarchs are the children of those that overwintered in Mexico. Generations are leapfrogging north to repopulate the eastern United States and southern Canada. [...]
With such a warm and snow-free winter here in southern New Jersey, this year I fielded the same question from many new wildlife gardeners through January and February – when is it safe to clean up the winter garden? Many of us leave our wildlife gardens standing through the winter to provide crucial cover and [...]
Crack of dawn the pair of Carolina Wrens that call our yard “home” sing their joyful “tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle” and we know they’ve survived another night. A dear friend gave us a roosting basket which we hung that very day. One of our Carolina Wrens began using it immediately to safely survive [...]
How we manage our wildlife habitat can mean survival or NOT for the very creatures we attract. Leaving a dead tree standing, a branch with a “hollow” uncut, creating a loose brush pile of fallen limbs, not raking leaves – all of these choices just might mean that the Mourning Cloaks of your garden will [...]
Plant This, Not That: New Jersey Natives Edition Black Cherry, Prunus serotina, vs Bradford Pear Genevieve Schmidt’s California Natives edition of “Plant This, Not That,” spurred a number of us to share natives from our own states and regions. Last month Eastern Red Cedar was my native choice and I am now sharing another favorite, [...]
Plant This, Not That: New Jersey Natives Edition Eastern Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana, vs Leyland Cypress. I really enjoyed Genevieve Schmidt’s recent California Natives edition of “Plant This, Not That,”and I’d like to share a New Jersey example. If only we could reach the many nurseries, landscapers and homeowners who ignore our natives. As wildlife [...]
It can be as simple as encouraging and sharing volunteer plants to hook a brand new wildlife gardener. I’m always surprised when the “tidy factor” wins and a gardener feels compelled to whack back spent flowers and seed heads and send them off to the compost pile. I bite my tongue, but am deeply puzzled. [...]
The typical garden may be “neat as a pin” but, to some, “ugly as sin” and pretty darned unfriendly to wildlife. I’m not saying that a garden has to be untidy, but so many of our maintenance tasks are just plain fussy and have the potential to be highly detrimental to the very critters we’ve [...]
Notes from a Wildlife Garden Naturalist As the naturalist at the Cape May Bird Observatory I fielded some pretty interesting phone calls over the years. Quite a few involved callers reporting tiny baby hummingbirds in their garden. I’d quickly clear up the confusion by first explaining that once young hummingbirds begin to fly they are [...]
A shared Bee Balm began my journey into wildlife gardening. Sharon, one of the staff at the local feed and seed store I frequented, excitedly told me about all the hummingbirds, butterflies, and even hummingbird moths that came to the Bee Balm in her garden. The next time I stopped in she presented me with [...]
