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Creating a backyard wildlife habitat can be fun and educational for the whole family. How many other activities can give your house curb appeal, get your kids away from the television, and save endangered wildlife all at the same time?

How to create a wildlife habitat

Wildlife basically need four things: food, water, cover, and a place to raise their young.[1] See the Find it! section below for products that can help make your yard a wildlife oasis. Or you an get creative and make your own.

Food sources

Provide wildlife with foods including native plants, seeds, fruits, nuts, berries, and nectar.[1] Choose a mixture of shrubs, trees, flowers, and other plants that will provide a year-round food supply. Tasty tidbits such as acorns, nuts, berries, seeds, fruit, nectar, and pollen are good food sources.[2] Here are a few other food source tips to attract wildlife to your yard:

• Butterflies are most attracted to brightly colored red, orange, yellow, purple, and pink flowers. Flat-topped flowers are easier to land on, and short flower tubes make nectar more easily accessible.[3]
• Hummingbirds are especially attracted to red and yellow tubular flowers.[4]
• Birds and small mammals love sunflower seeds.[4]
• Bees like a wide variety of flowers, both annual and perennial. Blue, purple, violet, white, and yellow flowers are especially favored. They also like the nectar and pollen of hostas (easy-to-grow shade plants) and are crazy about dandelions and Dutch clover.
• Plant fruit trees and flowering shrubs. Choose some that bloom in spring, and others that bloom in fall to give birds and bees food year round.
• Choose native wildflowers. Bees may find them four times more attractive than introduced flowers. Some ruffly cultivated flowers such as marigolds and hollyhocks don't have any pollen or nectar, and some are too dense for the bees to find their way into. Check out your local garden center: pick the plants that have the most bees on them!

Water sources

All animals require water. Possible sources of water include birdbaths, ponds, rivers, and streams.[1] Here are a few tips to attract animals to your property using water:

• Provide shallow water at the proper height to attract birds. Some birds like water that's at ground level, but a raised birdbath can keep birds out of the reach of cats and other predators. Add a flat rock or two placed with the top surface level with the water in the birdbath: it gives birds a safe perch.[3][2]
• A birdbath or drip irrigation also furnishes water for bees.
• Birds like water that's dripping, splashing, or moving.[5]
• Toads like an in-ground “toad bath.” These amphibians "drink" by absorbing water through their skin. For them, an ideal water source is a sunken flower pot saucer or other shallow container.
• Small ponds or waterfalls will attract toads, turtles, frogs, hawks, owls, herons, butterflies, dragonflies, and lots of birds.[3]

Cover

Cover gives wildlife protection from predators and offers protection from the elements. Try to keep cover near food and water sources to keep birds and animals less vulnerable.[2]

• Trees (including hollow ones), shrubs, tall grass, and bird houses provide great cover.[5]
• Trees supply shelter for squirrels, raccoons, and possums. Chickadees like evergreens; squirrels like pines.[4][2]
• Junipers are a great choice for songbirds, shrews, chipmunks, and rabbits, and an excellent source food in winter, when food is often scarce.[2][6]
• Stone walls and rock piles are favored by chipmunks and lizards.
• Log piles and stacks of firewood are used as cover by many birds and small mammals such as reptiles, amphibians, and chipmunks.[7]

Places to raise young

Wildlife need the right environment to raise their young in order to thrive. Dense shrubs, vegetation, nesting boxes, and ponds provide such places, depending on the species. Here are some other tips:

• Dead trees are often looked upon as an eyesore, yet they provide both food—in the form of wood-eating insects—and nesting spots for 19 species of woodpeckers and 66 other types of birds.[3] In all, dead trees provide homes to more than 400 species of birds, mammals, and amphibians.[4]
• Milkweed provides a place for Monarch butterflies to lay their eggs, as well as furnishes food for Monarch caterpillars. Milkweed flowers also supply nectar for adult Monarchs.[8]
• Sites that border open fields or lawns with a tree or fencepost nearby to serve as a feeding perch are the preferred nesting spots for Eastern bluebirds.[4]
• A stream or pond is a necessary safe haven for the survival of frogs, turtles, salamanders, and insects, such as dragonflies.[2]

Sustainable gardening practices

Create a wildlife-welcoming landscape that will keep wildlife healthy once it takes up residence. Make sure to follow organic gardening and lawn care practices, including:

• Use organic fertilizers
• Practice natural pest control
• Choose natural fungicides
• Use nontoxic weed killers

Other wildlife-friendly landscaping tips

Here are a few other tips to make your backyard wildlife friendly:

• Go native. Native plants tend to support 10 to 50 times the native species that non-natives do, mostly in the form of insects, which birds and animals feed on.[2]
• Plant in clumps. Research shows bees prefer flower gardens about 3 to 4 feet in diameter with large clumps of each type of flower.[9]
• Skip the plastic mulch and don't use other mulches too heavily. Most native bee species live in the ground. Bare, well-drained, sunny ground will provide a place for bees to nest. Some like south-facing slopes, while others like flat ground.[9]
• Make a "muddle". A puddle of mud with a little sea salt or wood ash mixed in provides bees with sodium and other necessary minerals.[9]
• Rocks in an unshaded location give amphibians a place to sun themselves.[1]
• If your land abuts wetlands, take special precautions when choosing plantings. Invasives such as purple loosestrife can take over, crowding out native plant species that wildlife depend on, and even causing the wetlands to dry out, losing precious wildlife habitat.[10]

Become certifiable

If the National Wildlife Federation tells you that you're certifiable, that's not necessarily a bad thing! In 1973, the NWF started a program to encourage homeowners, businesses, and communities to create wildlife- and eco-friendly habitats. Over 74,000 yards, schools, and communities are NWF-certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat™ sites.[1][11] See External links for details on these and other certification programs.

Find it! Products to create a wildlife habitat

Creating a wildlife habitat helps you go green because…

• It can restore wildlife habitat destroyed by housing and industrial developments.
• It protects endangered species.
• By attracting wildlife that feed on insects, you can eliminate the use of toxic pesticides that harm the environment.

About half of the 188 animals that are listed as endangered or threatened, including 17 bird species or subspecies, rely on wetlands, which are rapidly dwindling. Providing water sources in your landscape can help.[3]

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is killing over 30 percent of the nation's honeybee colonies each year. Suburban backyards and city gardens support as many native bees as farm fields and forests—maybe even more. Backyard landscaping practices can save and nurture these important pollinators.[9]

Allowing just one milkweed plant to reseed in your yard could result in 200 monarch butterflies each summer.[3]

Related health issues

Does inviting deer, and their disease-spreading ticks, into your yard mean you'll get Lyme disease? Actually, there's no one species of animal associated with Lyme disease. Ticks are found on 49 bird species and all mammals, including chipmunks, squirrels, voles, foxes, rabbits, and mice. As deer habitats and suburban neighborhoods increasingly overlap, fears have even lead to misguided efforts to kill deer in hopes of controlling the disease. But fewer deer actually increase the problem because ticks move in larger numbers to the remaining deer or switch to alternate hosts, including pets and humans.[12] Rocky Mountain spotted fever is another disease associated with ticks—the American dog tick, found throughout the Eastern US, and the Rocky Mountain wood tick, found in the Rocky Mountain states and southwestern Canada.[13]

You don't have to keep your yard off-limits to wildlife or slather yourself or your dog with toxic, DEET-containing insect repellents to prevent Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. Educate yourself about ticks. Make it a habit to check for ticks on your kids, your pets, and yourself every night if you've been outside during tick season. Checking for ticks can even be a fun and practical dating activity, according to Brad Paisley's hit country classic I'd Like to Check You for Ticks. Be aware that there's a lot of inaccurate information about Lyme disease on the Internet. If you live in an area with prevalent Lyme disease, ask your veterinarian to test for Lyme disease when you take your dog for its annual physical and heart worm test. Caught early, treatment is just a simple course of antibiotics for both animals and humans.[14]

Drawbacks

Some wildlife, such as deer, rabbits, woodchucks, and beavers can be a nuisance, feeding on newly-planted seeds, seedlings, bushes, trees, and crops. Others, such as bats and toads, are helpful, consuming harmful garden pests and mosquitoes. Still others, such as crows, are a little of both—eating pests, but also eating beneficials or creating other problems.[15] Commercial deterrents, homemade deterrents, fences, and other barriers may be needed to discourage unwanted wildlife. For more information, see Use natural pest control.

External links

• US Department of Agriculture - Backyard Habitat Check out the USDA's recommendations for trees, shrubs, and vines to attracts birds, and nectar plants for hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. Also learn how to attract reptiles, amphibians, bats, and mammals, as well as finding the right birdhouse for the species you want to attract.

• West Virginia University Extension Service - Backyard Wildlife: Cute-or Cunning? A Delight to Watch-or a Danger to Your Health? Read about the pros and cons of backyard wildlife and profiles of 15 common animals, including a description, habitat, food, when to look for them, and signs they've visited.

• National Wildlife Federation (NWF) - Create a Certified Wildlife Habitat Help NWF reach their goal of 100,000 certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat™. When you certify your yard for a $15 fee, you also receive a one-year NWF membership, including a subscription to their award-winning National Wildlife magazine.

• Florida Backyard Landscapes for Wildlife The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Wildlife Extension also sponsor a certification program. For a nominal $5.00 fee, anyone who owns or rents a residential property with at least 10 square yards that can be landscaped to be wildlife friendly can participate. The program includes information to design a yard to harbor wildlife and a sign to post to demonstrate your commitment.[16]

• TheDailyGreen.com - Survey: Beekeepers Lost 35% of Bees This Winter, Bumblebees Also Hurting ... And Where's That Government Aid? Find out why some beekeepers have a bee in their bonnet over the lack of government aid to address Colony Collapse Disorder. If you think food prices are high now, wait until more bees disappear!