Wildlife Habitat
Wildlife Habitat in your own yard.
No matter how small or large your yard is – you can create a beautiful wildlife habitat. It’s easy and we’ll share some tips with your today.
Provide Food for Wildlife – everyone needs to eat. Start with plantings around your yard – strive for native plants that will encourage more wildlife to visit your garden. They provide seeds, berries, nesting places and cover for all kinds of birds & other wildlife. Also,colorful plants provide nectar and pollen spring, summer and fall for a parade of butterflies and other pollinators. Turn that troublesome low area with wet soil into a garden filed with colorful plants that hang tough in the hot sun. Frogs, dragonflies, birds and other critters will love the food and cover. If you only have a small space – pick one or two plants that provide food. Or set out a feeding station for birds & other wildlife.
Supply Water for Wildlife - In the wild, birds & other wildlife can get their water from wherever they can find it – ponds, puddles, and even the cupped leaves of plants after a rain. You can bring the splendor of local and transient birds into your life when you offer them access to water near your home, apartment or farm. Set up a birdbath, man-made stream or pond and you’ll see wildlife flock to your property and return frequently. Keep a shallow basin so wildlife can enter without risk, textured surfaces are the most sought-after and water movement will even attract more wildlife. Place the birdbath on a pedestal for a sense of security and stability. Wet birds cannot fly fast, so don’t place it in the middle of the yard without an escape route – position it near a fence, shrub, or tree - even hanging in a tree. Make sure to keep the water clean without debris or residue buildup.
Create Cover for Wildlife - Cover is any part of an animal’s environment that provides protection and enhances the survival or reproduction of the animal. Often landowners think of cover as something animals hide under. Actually wildlife cover has 2 components:
1) it provides shelter from adverse weather conditions (winter or thermal cover), and
2) it provides protection from predators (screening or escape cover). Wildlife do need things in their environment to hide under, but cover also includes having something to hide behind, or some type of obstruction between the animal and a potential predator. Cover is three-dimensional and is related to the functional needs of animals. For example, many people in North Carolina have had the experience of seeing deer in an open field. If deer are disturbed, they will flee into any nearby woodlot. Often, the animals will stop and resume feeding once they have retreated back into the trees, even though you might be able to see it. The deer gets enough horizontal cover (space between the animal and you) to feel secure.
Give Wildlife a Place to Raise Their Young - Wildlife also need cover for nesting, escaping predators, breeding, rearing young, and resting. For example, the general habitat and cover requirement for bobwhite quail is a mixture of 30 to 40% grassland, 40 to 60% croplands, and 5 to 40% brushy or wooded cover. Closer examination reveals that bobwhite quail require a wide array of cover types for different functions or activities throughout the year. These cover types can be classified as:
· nesting cover (moderately dense grass-broadleaf weed mixture with nearly bare ground around grass clumps);
· roosting cover (grasslands with short-statured vegetation approximately 2 feet high with an open canopy for uninhibited movement);
· screening or escape cover (low growing shrubby or woody areas such as brushy fencerows or field dividers);
· dusting cover (dry, powdery, bare ground);
· brood-rearing cover (insect-rich mixtures of legumes or herbs with bare ground for movement);
· resting cover (similar to roosting cover where quail can escape potential predators easily); and
· thermal or winter cover (dense ground cover under a woody canopy).
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Some wildlife are not very selective about what they use for cover. For example, opossums can live in almost any type of habitat, including towns and cities. Other animals are selective about the type of cover they require. Ruffed grouse in the mountains of North Carolina prefer overgrown fields, second-growth hardwood forests, small timber slashings, and mature hardwood forests. These are general cover requirement of ruffed grouse.
Creating a wildlife habitat is about creating a place for the entire life-cycle of a species to occur, from tadpole to frog, from caterpillar to butterfly. Many habitat features that serve as cover can double as locations where wildlife can raise their young: from wildflower patches where butterflies and moths lay their eggs and small mammals burrow into the undergrowth, to constructed birdhouses, ponds for amphibians and fish, or caves where bats roost and form colonies.
You need at least two places for wildlife to engage in courtship behavior, mate, and then bear and raise their young: Mature Trees • Meadow or Prairie • Nesting Box • Wetland • Cave • Host Plants for Caterpillars • Dead Trees or Snags • Dense Shrubs or a Thicket • Water Garden or Pond • Burrow
For more information check out the new site: http://content.ces.ncsu.edu/20-wildlife/
