SUNFLOWER SEASON

March is a good time to plant sunflower seeds for blooms around the Fourth of July. Then stagger your plantings over the next few months with varieties of different colors and sizes. You’ll have blooming beauties into the fall.

Snails and slugs love to munch on fresh seedlings, so start seeds in a flat with seed starter soil and let them grow until they are 5 to 6 inches tall before planting them in the ground.

Sunflowers are one of the most satisfying plants to grow. They are easy to nurture, grow quickly and are spectacular to have in your garden, attracting bees as the flowers open. Sunflowers are also a great teaching tool. The seed patterns in the middle of the flower are an excellent example of the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical sequence where the next number is found by adding the two numbers before it. This sequence, which creates a spiral, is found everywhere in nature. When sunflowers have finished blooming, cut the heads off the stalks and lay them out for the birds to pick at, completing a perfect cycle in the garden.

— LESLIE CRAWFORD

OSPREYS, also known as fish hawks, are found on all continents except Antarctica, nesting near bodies of water. They are large raptors with a body length of 24 inches and a wingspan of almost 6 feet. They make a distinctive chirping or whistling sound.

Ospreys are specially equipped to catch fish — their primary food — but will also eat snakes, rodents, turtles, rabbits and other small mammals. They can detect fish underwater from more than 100 feet in the air, plunging headfirst into the water to catch their prey. An outer toe is reversable to help grasp prey with two toes on each side of the catch, a capability unique to ospreys and owls among raptors. Ospreys also have barbs on the soles of their feet to aid in grasping.

Fifty years ago, ospreys were rare in the San Diego area due to poisoning from pesticides, which is more controlled now. By 2001, ospreys were more abundant in the region than at any other time in history, and nesting poles have been erected throughout the area to help house them. Look for a nesting pole at the Coronado Golf Course near Stingray Beach and at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, next to the perimeter fence by the city boathouse. The osprey pictured here was at the Coronado Shores beach. ■

Class: Aves

Order: Accipitriformes

Family: Pandionidae

Genus: Pandion

Species: Pandion haliaetus