Creating wildlife habitat in your backyard

Wildlife habitat is defined as the area in which animals find the food, water and cover they need to survive. Backyards can be productive wildlife habitats, especially when the landscaping efforts blend in with natural conditions.

Many of us stock birdfeeders with commercial birdseed and other foods, especially during the winter months. We all enjoy watching the many resident birds, such as chickadees, woodpeckers, nuthatches, finches, mourning doves and the sometimes bothersome blue jays and wild turkeys. To a lesser degree, we tolerate gray and red squirrels and occasional raccoons and deer. Once in a while, we are thrilled by the visits of less-seen birds, such as tufted titmice and red-bellied woodpeckers.

Feeding areas vary from an apartment window ledge to large yards with platform trays, suet bags, tube feeders, pools and birdbaths.

However, winter bird feeding is only part of creating an all-season wildlife habitat.

Edge effect

One of the most important things to do when planning a wildlife habitat is to furnish a variety of food and cover. The easiest way to do this is to provide an “edge effect”: a combination of lawns, shrubbery, seedy corners and both deciduous and evergreen trees. This kind of habitat invites the majority of species of songbirds to both nest and feed on your property.

Large expanses of rather sterile lawns are of little use to wildlife except perhaps robins, worms and moles. Break up the lawns by creating the edge effect with garden, shrubs, vines and trees. Even a brush pile and a snag or two (dead trees) encourages wildlife. Pileated woodpeckers like big, old, dead trees.

Useful plants

Dense conifer plants such as cedar are an excellent choice to provide cover and food. Pine, fir, spruce and hemlock are good if they can be kept cut back so that they grow thicker.

Blackberries and raspberries offer resting cover and food, although blackberries can get out of control. Tangles of grape and Virginia creeper vines produce fruit and cover.

Some native plants such as grey-stemmed dogwood, hawthorn, sumac, cherry, serviceberry, mountain ash and crabapples have berries and fruits that attract many birds and provide shelter and nesting sites.

A flower garden with impatiens, hollyhocks, lupine, fuschia, bee balm, cardinal flowers and touch-me-nots will attract wildlife including ruby-throated hummingbirds and bees.

Sunflowers, thistle and milkweed plants all provide food and nesting material for several species of wild birds, including goldfinches. Leaving some lawn areas uncut will allow a mixture of grasses and wildflowers for animals to feed on.

Brush piles

Brush piles are easy to construct, especially if you are doing some clearing or limb trimming on your property. Those piles of brush and even last year’s Christmas tree provide shelter and nesting places. We’ve had song sparrows nest in our brush pile for several years until we needed to burn it (which we did in the winter).

Piles of rocks or a stone wall make good cover and travel corridors for chipmunks and red and gray squirrels. Our flock of a dozen or so mourning doves spent the winter in the shelter of a stone wall and a nearby fallen ash tree.

Water

Providing water can be simple to do and is an important addition to your yard for attracting wildlife. During the warmer months, a shallow pan is all that is needed. The water depth should be two inches or less so that small birds can stand in it. Water must be kept fresh so that wildlife will have a good supply of drinking water. This is especially important in dry weather.

Birds often bathe in pools of water and they will use the basin or pan to do that. It is fun to watch them. We have an iron drinking basin on a stand that the birds use. We clean it out and put fresh water in it most every day. I bought it at a feed store.

Small garden pools are good backyard features. A variety of pool kits can also be purchased at feed and wildlife stores. Swales, seeps and other wet areas are also important for habitat. These natural areas should be preserved.

Ponds are one of the best attractions for wildlife but need a lot of maintenance to keep it as natural as possible. Let grasses, reeds and small shrubs grow around the edges and do not mow the lawn right down to the edge of the water.

Nesting boxes

Calling nesting boxes “birdhouses” is somewhat misleading because birds construct nests only for the specific purpose of protecting and warming their eggs and young nestlings. Once they have fledged, the nest box is deserted unless another brood is raised in the same season.

Nesting boxes are also often used by birds for roosting and as a shelter from bad weather. Sometimes mice or squirrels will use the box in the wintertime. It is important to clean out the nesting box in the fall and again in the spring to prepare for the returning birds.

Bird boxes and similar artificial nests have been known to attract as many as 50 species of American birds. To encourage native species, it is important that the correct dimensions be used so that English sparrows and starlings don’t take over the boxes from bluebirds, tree swallows and wrens.

The two most important things to look for are the size of the entrance hole and an extension attached to the entrance hole to keep raccoons and other animals from reaching into the nesting box to get the eggs or nestlings.

Guidebooks and other printed information for building or purchasing nesting boxes can be found in book stores and garden centers.

Donald and Lillian Stocks have a book called “The Bluebird Book” that has excellent bluebird box specifications. Also, searching on the Internet for bluebird nesting boxes can help you find just the right box for the species you wish to attract and how and where to install it in your backyard or meadow. There are many things to consider when placing a nesting box.

Remember to keep your yard as natural as you can and to plan ahead for slowly creating a wildlife habitat where both you and the wild creatures that live and visit there will live in harmony.