DEAR JOAN: I love nature and like to incorporate it into my home decor. I gather dried flowers and seed pods in the fall and make wreaths, centerpieces and other displays.
Recently, I’ve begun collecting bird feathers and adding them to my projects, but a friend of mine told me that it is illegal to pick up bird feathers and keep them. This sounds absurd to me. I don’t kill the bird to get the feather; I just find them on the ground.
Carol, Concord
DEAR CAROL: I’m afraid your friend is correct. While it might sound like a case of zealous governmental nuttiness, there is a good reason for it.
In 1918, the United States and Canada signed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, making it illegal to trap, kill, possess, sell or harass migratory birds, and the protection includes their eggs, nests and feathers. Other countries also have joined in on the agreement.
The treaty wasn’t enacted on a whim. Some species of birds were being hunted to near extinction for the exotic pet and fashion trades.
You are permitted to collect feathers from non-native birds, such as European starlings and house sparrows, and domesticated birds such as turkeys and chickens, but all native, migratory birds — and there are more than 1,000 species on the list — are protected.
It’s not that they don’t want you to have the feathers discarded by birds, it’s just that they don’t know how you acquired them. Someone could say they found a feather on the ground, but officials have no way of knowing whether that person innocently found the feather, killed a bird for its plumage, or captured it to sell illegally.
There are exceptions to the law and special permits may be given for taxidermy, game birds taken in season and for researchers. Native Americans also are allowed to possess certain eagle and hawk feathers.
I don’t think anyone is going to come kicking in your door because of your feathers, but you might want to be careful about what you collect in the future. The fines for a conviction go up to $15,000; $100,000 for eagle feathers.
DEAR JOAN: I have lived in the same house just south of Highway 4 for more than 30 years. For most of those years, I have had a very productive lemon tree in the backyard.
For the first time in my life, I have found lemons during the last three weeks that have fallen to the ground with their entire, or almost entire, rinds being eaten off and the juicy insides essentially untouched.
The other day, I cleared up a few eaten lemons, but an hour later I found another lemon with its entire rind eaten off. What kind for critter is doing this?
Doug Sibley, Martinez
DEAR DOUG: When you go outside and find those lemons, stomp your foot and shout “Rats,” because that’s what you have.
A few common backyard wild critters will help themselves to your lemons, but the rats leave a special calling card. They don’t like the sour pulp of the lemon, but they are fond of the peel. They can strip it from the fruit sometimes without even knocking the lemon off the tree. While nocturnal, rats do venture out during the day when tempted.
Rats are particularly bountiful this year, and trying to stop them is difficult. As most of us have too many lemons anyway, maybe you can spare a few.
