This page is http://home.wi.rr.com/phunter1/lakeparkburdock.html  ...  9/4/07, Maintained by Paul Hunter
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2007: Year of Busting Burdock to Conserve Kinglets

Volunteer to join Janice Steinbach is her reglar efforts to remove burdock from the bluffs at Lake Park in Milwaukee!
Email Janice at j6steinbach@juno.com to volunteer.
As of 9/1/07 she was planning to work from 10 AM to noon on Thursdays and some Saturdays in September and October.
Burdock is a common alien* plant found growing on the edges of lawns and wooded areas in Lake Park and many parks in Milwaukee and many other American cities.  Its burrs have velcro-like hooks that entrap and kill small birds.  Kinglets (Golden and Ruby - Crowned) are especially vulnerable.  Chickadees and House Sparrows don't get stuck, but American Goldfinches occasionally do.

Years of experience of the "Burdock Brigade" at the Urban Ecology Center in Riverside Park, just a mile west of Lake Park, shows that eradicating burdock is nearly impossible.  However, reducing harm to birds should be achievable with focused effort on removing the burrs themselves.  (See below.)

In 2007, all birding events in Lake Park (Warbler Walks and Duck Watches) will include some effort to remove burdock burrs.


Removing the burs is very easy. [ From Lake Park Friends]

1.  The quickest way is to just break off the stem of burs just below the lowest bur.  All you need is a large sturdy plastic bag, put the stem in the bag and keep pushing them down.  The bag will fill up fast.  Thus, when you get the bag almost full, close the top and step on it.  This will collapse the stems and you can put more in the bag.  This way works best when it is cold and you have to wear gloves.

2.  You can also strip each stem by hand.  This takes longer, but takes up less space in a bag.  You can use a grocery bag and just keep putting the handfuls of burs in the bag until you have one big ball of burs.  It also leaves the bare stems standing.  But you have to use bare hands because the burs will stick to everything.

[So far, as a birder, I, prefer #2, the bare-handed technique.  It is fairly rapid and the small size of the burr balls in a plastic bag doesn't interfere with using your binoculars or scope.  Paul Hunter 12/23/06]
From Janice Steinbach:

... there are some tiny spicules that come out of the burdock that look like dust, but under a microscope they have little arrow-type blades on it, so when you're done working on the burdock, you start getting this itchiness whereever your skin wasn't protected.  Mowing is also not a good thing, because of the spicules, I know of someone who did this and got the spicules stuck in their eye, it was very painful and they could only be surgically removed.  So burdock can be bad for humans also.  But if you're covered up correctly, and careful, it shouldn't be harmful. ...