Learning to live with wildlife in your backyard means resisting the notion that wild creatures are somehow out to get you, local experts say.
In fact, homeowners are often unwittingly harming or endangering living things that either pose them no threat or are beneficial when they could be helping them thrive.
The best way to remedy a lack of understanding for nature's plan for the native birds, insects, mammals and reptiles that populate area neighborhoods is through access to information, which will be in plentiful supply at the eighth annual Howard County GreenFest, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Howard Community College.
GreenFest, a free event sponsored by the county's Office of Environmental Sustainability, is always planned for the Saturday closest to Earth Day on April 22. "Living with Wildlife" is this year's theme.
Aside from 25 workshops on topics ranging from the benefits of bats to safely deterring deer and more than 80 displays to visit, recycling of household items is also a big draw, said Bill Mahoney, a county planner.
Denim jeans, for example, are boxed and shipped to Arizona where they're made into insulation, though that plan is being reassessed for its cost and impact on our carbon footprint, he said.
Shoes are donated with the exception of sneakers, which are sent to the Nike Reuse a Shoe Program to be ground up for courts, turf fields and tracks.
Cell phones are given to a battered women's program, and bicycles are donated to Bikes for the World, which in turn provides them to organizations helping people in need of transportation in order to get jobs.
"These are all pretty cool, worthwhile causes," Mahoney said.
Last year, eight tons of paper was shredded and four tons of electronics was collected for recycling, he said. Document shredding was so popular it caused a traffic backup and will not be included at this year's event, but offered instead on April 25 at the Long Gate Park and Ride off Route 100.
There will also be a native plant sale, giveaways of 50 rain barrels and a tumbling composter and children's activities.
Creeping, crawling wildlife
Snakes are an especially good example of our misplaced distrust of wildlife, says Ray Bosmans, a Clarksville resident who gives talks on turtles, snakes and amphibians and is president of the Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society. His workshop is slated for 1:30 p.m.
"When you see a snake in your yard it can make you uneasy, and you may feel anything from excitement to curiosity to downright fear," he said. "Many people are [wrongly] proud to say they've killed a snake."
This outlook has changed for the better over the years, but not by much.
"Back in the 1950s people believed the only good snake was a dead one," said Bosmans, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park.
"When I was growing up in Prince George's County my dad decided we were going to catch snakes and learn more about them, so he made aquariums for us in the back of our garage," he recalled of his late father, who worked as a boilermaker. "He spread the word to neighbors not to kill snakes, but to let him come and get them."
There are a big variety of snakes in Maryland, many of which are harmless and should be left alone, he said.
Box turtles, on the other hand, are a universally liked wild creature, but their population is in decline as many have been accidentally run over and killed on area roadways, he said.
"If you see one on a road, you should pick it up and place it on the other side of the road, pointed in the same direction it was traveling," Bosmans advised. "If you put it back where it came from it will just turn around and attempt to cross the road again to get where it wants to go."
Homeowners who discover a turtle laying eggs on their lawn should attempt to protect the eggs from natural predators by placing a cage over them, he said.
The common snapping turtle is a different story, and people should never attempt to pick one up or poke it with a stick as it can snap off a child's finger with its jaws, he said.
He has owned an unusually calm snapping turtle since his kids got it from a neighbor more than 30 years ago, he said, and will probably be able to bring it to GreenFest since temperatures are warming and the turtles' hibernation is ending. Various live species will also be on display in aquariums.
Other turtles seen in Howard County include the Eastern painted turtle, of which there are plenty at Centennial Lake and Lake Elkhorn; the Eastern mud turtle, which is brown and can be hard to spot; and the Eastern musk turtle, which "lets out a real stink when it's scared," he said.
To help turtles, snakes and amphibians co-exist in your yard, Bosmans suggests providing plant cover or allowing an area of your property to grow wild for them to take refuge. He also recommends avoiding mowing at night, when these creatures are likely to come out in search of insects or other food and can be easily injured or killed.
"People need to become more tolerant of animals," he said.
Backyard bird boxes
Sue Muller remembers the chilling moment when birds became her cause.
Growing up in upstate New York, the natural resources technician with the county's recreation and parks department discovered a lot of dying Japanese beetles in her family's well-manicured yard when she was 8 or 9.
Then she noticed a lot of birds that had taken refuge in a weeping willow were winding up dead beneath it. After wrapping their bodies in foil and delivering them with her mother to a local environmental science department, she remembers screaming when she learned they had died from ingesting beetles that had been sprayed with pesticide.
"I was born 'green,' and birds have been my passion since second grade when I got my first pair of binoculars," Muller said.
She will give a workshop on Monitoring Backyard Bird Boxes at 2:30 p.m.
There are six species of native birds in Howard County that like to nest in a cavity, such as a hole in a tree, she said. They are the Eastern bluebird, Carolina wren, house wren, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse and tree swallow.
Since trees are routinely cut down for firewood or because they're rotting, more people are erecting bird boxes in their backyards to provide a habitat for these birds, she said.
The problem is the non-native house sparrow, an aggressive bird that came to America from Europe, prefers similar spots for nest-building and will peck a native bird to death in order to take over the box, even building its nest over another nest filled with eggs, Muller said.
"You can monitor a backyard box and remove a house sparrow's nest since it isn't protected by law," she said.
Muller will also give a presentation at 10:30 a.m. on using the website of the Maryland Biodiversity Project, which was started in 2012 and has now catalogued more than 15,000 living things thanks in part to the input of citizens.
For more information on GreenFest and to see a schedule of the day's workshops, go to hcgreenfest.org. Admission is free and activities are family-oriented.