Do you love bird watching? Would you like to have more lovely butterflies? Turn your patio or backyard in a wildlife habitat for birds, butterflies and more! You can easily create a wildscape that will be beautiful and easy to maintain.

  Building a Backyard Wildlife Habitat

Whether you have a large yard or small patio, you can create oasis for wildlife, birds and butterflies. With just a few simple steps you can have a backyard habitat for wildlife. The main elements that you will need to provide are: cover, food and water.

Cover for Backyard Wildlife

Cover is a wildlife friendly landscape with plants to provide shade, a place to perch, a place to hide and places to raise young. Providing cover encourages wildlife to stay and visit you. If you have a patio this can be achieved by hanging some potted flowers to entice butterflies and hummingbirds. Set out a few shrubs in pots and you have cover for a small area.

Begin by taking stock of what you have in your backyard. Try to reduce the area of neatly manicured lawns and shrubs. Native trees, vines, grasses and shrubs make a good understory of cover and have an added bonus of being low maintenance. Include plants that will bear fruit for the birds and small mammals such as: evergreens, juniper, holly, elderberry, mexican plums, mulberry and yaupon. You local county extension office can advise you on varieties that are suitable to your climate. They will usually send you a wonderful assortment of booklets for "wildscaping" in your area.

If you have the room, providing bird houses will encourage birds to raise families year after year in your yard. You can either purchase a birdhouse designed specifically for a particular species or make your own.

Food for Backyard Wildlife

Native plants will supply wildlife food but having feeders in your backyard habitat is so much fun. A simple humming bird feeder (hung in the shade) will attract many hummers and you will soon find that you want more than one.

When purchasing bird seed it is best to get a good quality mixture with sunflower seeds, cracked corn, peanuts and millet. Birds will often toss out what they do not want and what hits the ground will be eaten by the ground feeding birds such as doves and also small mammals.

Many people get absolutely unreasonable about squirrels in their bird feeders. I have never really had a problem and will share my secret - put out lots of feeders for the squirrels and fill them with the same mixture. The only time I get squirrels into my bird feeders is when the squirrel feeders run out. There are many beautiful bird feeders on the market and squirrels will chew. The best advice is to just get some cheap ones. That way you are not driving yourself nuts trying to control what you can not. Squirrels are a wonderful addition to any habitat and their antics will both amuse and soothe you. Life is too short to get mantic about squirrels in bird feeders!

Water for Backyard Wildlife

The most important thing in providing water for your backyard habitat is to be sure to keep it clean and change out the water daily. You do not have to spend a lot of money to have a water source. The saucers for potted plants with a few rocks work very well. There are small patio fountains to buy or make from a kit. Shallow containers are better than ones with steep sides. To attract birds the water needs to be no more than 2-3 inches deep. If you have the space you may want to have a pond for your pleasure as well as for backyard wildlife.

Please be sure to clean your water containers. Bleach or sudsy water are fine to use but take special care to rinse well. In the winter you will need to replace frozen water with fresh water.

In conclusion, turning your yard or patio into a backyard habitat is a rewarding experience. Planting native plants reduces the need for pesticides. Birds in the yard will take care of unwanted bugs. Many of these animals and birds will come to feed and take up residence in your sanctuary. You will have the pleasure of watching an ever-changing display of the wonders of nature as close as your own backyard.

National Wildlife Federation Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Backyard Wildlife

Every aspect of backyard gardening for wildlife is covered. Whether you have a rooftop garden in the city, an urban condo with a small patio or a large rural yard, this book helps you develop a landscape that will attract more birds, butterflies and other wild creatures into that space.