Create a Backyard Habitat
● Getting Started
● Your Backyard and Your Community
● A Backyard Habitat Case Study
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Getting Started
So, you want to help wildlife. You’re one of thousands of Canadians concerned about our disappearing natural heritage. The first step starts, simply enough, in your own backyard. This chapter shows you how to plan a backyard habitat for wildlife. It also explains what an important and positive impact your efforts can have.
The rest of the guide is packed with easy-to-follow projects on planting and building for wildlife, protecting special habitats, and much more. If you’re an apartment dweller, don’t feel left out. There are plenty of ideas for you here as well. Some landlords or superintendents won’t let inhabitants plant or use bird feeders on balconies. If you’re in that situation, you may be able to convince the management to let you develop the grounds around your building for wildlife. Whether you decide to put up a single bird house or transform every corner of your backyard to benefit hordes of species, you’ll be helping wildlife and the rest of our world in a very meaningful way. There’s something for everyone here! So, let’s get started.
What is Wildlife?
Wildlife includes a lot more than furry creatures and songbirds. It consists of wild mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, plants, fungi, algae, bacteria, and other organisms. It’s important to understand that wild species and the habitat where they live are inseparable. When habitat is damaged or destroyed, the inevitable result is the destruction of wildlife.
What is Habitat?
Like you, wild animals need a suitable home that satisfies four basic needs food, water, shelter, and space arranged just the way they like it. If we remove or disturb any of these vital habitat requirements, we force animals to look for other residences. What’s worse, they can die if they can’t find a suitable home nearby. Did you know that disruption and loss of habitat are the biggest problems facing wildlife today? Unlike you, wild animals have no control over what we do to their homes.
You’re lucky you can count on a home. But that’s not so for most wildlife. When we build houses, clear land for farms, drain marshes, or pollute lakes and streams, we cause a major housing crisis for creatures big and small.
Why Should You Get Involved?
Here’s where your contribution comes in. With the help of Backyard Habitat for Canada’s Wildlife, you can make sure that wild creatures have a place to live on your property. Take a look at your community. How many areas have been changed without a thought for the wildlife living there? Have lakes and streams been polluted? Has a swamp been drained or brush torn up? Unfortunately, more space for humans usually means less space for wildlife unless we do something about it. And creating a backyard habitat is a great way to start. Let’s begin by looking at the habitat requirements of wild animals. Then we’ll explore your backyard to discover which habitat elements already exist there and which ones need to be developed.
Habitat Planning Check-list
The following check-list will remind you of the steps to take in any habitat improvement effort. Again, the four basics for success are food, water, shelter, and space.
• Food: All wildlife species have unique food requirements, which change with the seasons and as animals mature. To meet these needs, provide (both aquatic and terrestrial) that yield a variety of foods, such as berries, fruits, nuts, acorns, grasses, and legumes. Don’t forget that plants also attract insects, which appeal to birds and other creatures.
• Water: Animals need water all year round. Make doubly sure that they have access to a source of water in winter. Springs, marshes, creeks, swamps, rivers, and lakes are all important sources, but so are puddles, fountains, and bird-baths. Even a child’s plastic wading pool is a source of water for wildlife. However, dripping or flowing water is more attractive to most wildlife than still water.
• Shelter: Wild animals need cover to protect themselves from predators and bad weather. Trees, shrubs, legumes, grasses, flowers, and such structures as rock piles, brush piles, tree hollows, and bird houses are among the many forms of shelter that provide wildlife with hiding spots and places to raise their young. For example, hawks and other raptors like to hide in trees and swoop down to the ground to catch mice and other small animals.
• Space: Every species has its own space or territorial needs. A common loon, for example, will defend up to 40 hectares of lake or wetland as nesting territory, whereas a ruffed grouse needs only about four hectares. On the other hand, wood ducks and purple martins do not defend territories around their nests at all.
Besides the four basics, there are other habitat requirements to consider:
• Variety: The more kinds of native plants, the merrier. A wide choice will appeal to a wide range of wildlife. Variety also means that the cupboard will never be bare, even if bugs or disease kill some kinds of plants.
• Change of seasons: The four basic habitat needs must be taken into consideration year-round. Plant for all seasons to prevent wild creatures from going hungry even in the worst wintry weather.
• Arrangement: To suit your furred or feathered friends, the four basics must be arranged just so. If you want to improve eating opportunities, make sure shelter is available nearby. Often wild animals have to eat and run, seeking cover before they themselves get eaten up.
• Protection: Reflective windows are real hazards for birds, which may crash into them. You can protect birds from such unfortunate collisions by sticking a silhouette of a predator, like a falcon, on each pane of glass. Streamers or netting over a window will provide even better protection.
• Native plants and seeds: Try to use native species of plants and seeds. You’ll be giving our wild plant heritage a big boost, while providing long-lasting food and cover for all sorts of animals. To select the best plants for your area, seek advice from your nearest nursery, arboretum, botany professor, the botany department of a nearby university, or your regional department of wildlife, agriculture, or forestry. Remember that it’s not acceptable to take plants out of the wild.
• Climate: Plants that prefer the climate of your area will last a long time after you put them in the ground. Choose hardy species that will live for years.
• Soils: Healthy soils produce healthy plants. A simple soil test is provided later in the chapter. Information about this important component of habitat is also available from federal or regional departments of agriculture, or nurseries and garden centres.
Get to Know Your Backyard
You’re beginning to see that your backyard can be much more than a nice place to barbecue hamburgers or play croquet. At this point, it’s important to view your property from a different perspective with wildlife needs in mind.
There are two ways to use this guide. The first is to go directly to the projects. Pick one that appeals to you and is appropriate for your backyard, then roll up your sleeves and get started!
A second, more methodical way is to develop a backyard habitat action plan, which begins by drawing a map of your existing yard. This exercise will help you find out which elements of wildlife habitat you already have and which ones are missing. An action plan is an effective and organized way of attracting the wildlife species you want to see.
Be Realistic
Before you get too far in your planning, you have to decide what kind of wildlife you want to attract. Be realistic don’t expect to see moose in a downtown backyard! Pick four or five species of wild animals found in your area and build your plan with their needs in mind. Find out what kinds of plants provide their favourite food and shelter. Those plants should be native to your area. What kind of soil, light, and water needs do they have?
The following section will help you create plans that benefit the greatest variety of wildlife. Also note that you may want to repel, rather than attract, certain species like raccoons from your backyard. In that case, Deal With Problems will be a huge help.
Develop an Action Plan
Planning will help you create a backyard habitat in manageable steps. It will also ensure that you circumnavigate snafus, pitfalls, and other frustrating foul-ups that might tempt you to abandon the whole darn project!
The following check-list provides a handy overview of elements you need to consider as you develop your backyard habitat action plan.
• Take inventory. Determine what habitat elements are already available in your yard. A map will help you with this task. Put in such features as fences, sheds, trees, travel lanes, and so on.
• Establish your goal. What species do you want to attract?
• Set your priorities. Where do you want to start?
• Draw up a timetable. Do you want to achieve your goal in one season or work towards it by doing a series of projects over several seasons? Do you want to spruce up a corner of your yard with a single project or transform your entire property for wildlife?
• Strike a budget. How much money are you willing to spend on your backyard habitat? (It’s not really necessary to spend any money at all. Find out how by reading the Backyard Habitat Case Study.)
• Identify what you need. What structures and plants must you provide to achieve your goal? Are there areas of your backyard that need to be enhanced? Refer to the chapters on planting and building for ideas.
• Draw up a site plan of your backyard habitat. In other words, make a blueprint of what you want to do. If you want to modify elements that already exist in your yard, incorporate details into your site plan from the map you’ve made of your property. Use cut-outs of plantings, bird feeders, frog ponds, brush and rock piles, and any other features you want to add to your backyard. That way, you can shuffle them around until the arrangement is just the way you want it. Add the names of the trees, flowers, and shrubs you wish to plant. See the Plant for Wildlife chart for lists of plants suitable to your area.
• Keep the peace. To maintain good relations with your neighbours, let them know why you’re transforming your property for wildlife.
• Research and consult. Talk to local forestry, wildlife, horticultural, and soil conservation experts. Join a local horticultural group. Comb the library for books, articles, and ideas.
• Seek out sources. Find out where you can obtain the seeds, seedlings, and other materials you need. Nurseries, garden centres, garage sales, horticultural clubs, lumberyards, and areas slated for development are all good possibilities. Exchange seedlings and plants with friends and neighbours. See Sources of Native Plants and Seeds for a partial list of sources.
• Make a final plan. Draw it on graph paper to scale.
• Be prepared to get your hands dirty! Nature can’t be hurried. Be patient and have fun. Bit by bit, you’ll delight in the slow and steady transformation of your backyard.
• Maintain and modify. Be sure to clean nesting boxes and feeders, scrub and fill bird-baths, prune bushes, replace dead plants, deal with pests effectively and responsibly, and do other maintenance chores on a regular basis. You may find that some projects don’t turn out quite as you expected. Remember, you can always do a little rethinking and rearranging.