Wildlife In the Backyard

WILDLIFE IN THE BACKYARD
May 03 & May 05
There is something very therapeutic about mowing grass. I do some of my most serious pondering when I am behind a lawn mower, and many a column has been created to the roar of a Briggs & Stratton. Today’s column was no exception. It is probably a good thing that I have this philosophy as we have two acres of grass to cut, less than half of which is done with a riding mower.
However, mowing my lawn isn’t the cut (no pun intended) and dried exercise it was 30 years ago when we moved to our lot at the southeast corner of Big Island. There were no trees to mow around back then. In fact, the house is situated where a fence once stretched, dividing a field of timothy hay from a field of oats. I clearly remember jumping onto the combine and hastily cutting the field of oats so we could get started with the house. To say the lot was barren would be an understatement; the only sign of higher life was a pear tree, at the end of our driveway, which blew down in a windstorm before we even got settled. As I like to describe our early premises to audiences when I do slide shows and Power Point presentations, “The lot was so bare that even the killdeers became suspicious, and refused to nest on the property.”
All that has changed. The “oat field” now contains a variety trees including ash, white spruce, a red pine, a black walnut, lilacs, grey dogwood and wild currents. The “hay field” is similarly wooded with ash, locust, sumac, maples, spruce and a variety of shrubs. We actually harvest wood now for our outdoor barbeque!
From Day One, we strived to plant only those shrubs and trees that we knew had wildlife value – those that produced seeds or berries, or provided shelter that might offer inviting branches for a mourning dove to place her handful of sticks, or a robin, or anything else that chose to touch down on our premises. We insisted on native plants as that is what one needs to plant if they wish to attract wildlife. We made mistakes along the way, mainly by purchasing on impulse without first researching, and listening to retailers who more times than not treated the term “native” with as much disregard as some packaging companies when they label their products “natural.”
Our first mistake was a ” red maple” which eventually evolved into a Norway maple. We were also talked into three”native” honey locusts, which aren’t native at all, unless you live along the Lake Erie shoreline. Someone else suggested native black locusts, so we planted them, only to discover that black locusts aren’t even native to Ontario, never mind the Quinte area. They are native to mid-eastern United States.
That is not to say the trees have proven to be totally useless. They certainly contribute to the overall landscape that we have tried to create for the past three decades. What a treat to sit in our lawn chairs, albeit under our Norway maple, and see these trees and shrubs work for us. Our list of bird species that have made use of our premises now stands at 101 species, 20 of which have nested as a result of our efforts. Deer are regulars, as are woodchucks, raccoons, skunks, and just last week we had a second visit from a fisher. There have been luna moths, bird dropping moths, mourning cloak butterflies, walking sticks, bats, tree frogs, milk snakes, star-nosed moles, shrews, and one morning about 10 years ago, a bittern casually strolled through our garden, between the beans and the lettuce. It made its way to our front step, where it peered through the kitchen door for a moment, then ambled across the yard, made its way through our rail fence, and disappeared into a field of brome grass. We have no idea sometimes what in our yard attracts who, but it is encouraging to think that something we did in our yard resulted in the appearance of those species we have recorded.
One of the secrets to attracting wildlife is knowing their four basic needs – food, water, shelter and space – and working within those requirements to attract the species you want. It’s wildlife management on a small scale, and by becoming intimate with what each species likes or dislikes, you can effectively persuade, or conversely, dissuade any species on your property. It’s not difficult to have raccoons in a yard, if you should want them, when you also have goldfish in a water garden, or both squirrels and chickadees at your feeding station. It’s simply a case of researching each species, and working within their system. And if you happen to dislike snakes, you don’t build a stone fence, or a rock garden. You also don’t plant red osier dogwood, if you don’t want deer. But if you want waxwings and grosbeaks, you do plant mountain ash and sumac. And so it goes.
In a world that seems to make less sense with each passing year, sitting in a backyard basking in the presence of wildlife, whether it is a deer or something as innocuous as a moth, is a pastime that I personally find very relaxing. A Power Point presentation that I have prepared called “Keep It Natural, and They Will Come,” continues to be the most requested topic whenever I am asked to speak to a group. Environmental awareness among those who appreciate the outdoors has resulted in many people wanting a piece of the action in their own backyard, and as property owners, it is among the simplest things we can do on our properties.