Gimme shelter

Category: Places for Cover
Required points: 2
Suggested sources: Wooded Area • Bramble Patch • Ground Cover • Rock Pile or Wall • Cave • Roosting Box • Dense Shrubs or Thicket • Evergreens • Brush or Log Pile • Burrow • Meadow or Prairie • Water Garden or Pond

The Places for Cover credit requires a little explanation to differentiate it from the Places to Raise Young credit (to be described in a future post). National Wildlife Federation describes the cover credit:

Wildlife need places to hide to feel safe from people, predators, and inclement weather. Native vegetation is a perfect cover for terrestrial wildlife. Shrubs, thickets and brush piles provide great hiding places within their bushy leaves and thorns.

Bat box: Bat boxes are rather like bird nesting or roosting boxes, only entry is through the bottom. A typical bat box also includes some parallel interior walls. Bats don't need much personal space, but they do need a surface to cling to. I picked-up my bat box, ready-made at Lowe's, for about $20. Installation was a matter of a stepladder, a cordless drill to bore a pilot hole and start the screws, and fifteen minutes of my time. My then 12-month-old son was enthralled by this process.
Alas, no bats have yet taken-up residence in my bat box. In fact, I haven't been certain that I've seen a single bat all season. What troubles me is that I don't think that this is simply a matter of probability and the fact that getting my son ready for bed means that I spend less time outside in the evening than I used to. I'm concerned that this is indicative of white nose syndrome, the fungal plague that is apparently decimating Eastern bat populations. It seems that there just aren't any bats around.

Evergreen trees: Since I like to exploit some of the features that were already in my yard before I started gearing-up my habitat, I'm leaning on the two (likely exotic) evergreen trees that crowd the west wall of my home for one of my Cover points. Evergreens provide a place for birds to roost and evade predators, year-round.

It's for the birds (and butterflies, and preying mantis, and squash bees, and chipmunks...)

Category: Food sources
Required points: 3
Suggested sources: Seeds from a plant, Berries, Nectar, Foliage/Twigs, Nuts, Fruits, Sap, Pollen, Suet, Bird Feeder, Squirrel Feeder, Hummingbird Feeder, Butterfly Feeder

The National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat program begins with food sources, no doubt because this is the first thing most people think about when considering ways to support wildlife.
For my part, I prefer systems that require little outside intervention. Rather than committing to constantly correcting or maintaining something, I prefer to create something that naturally does what it’s intended to do. I also dislike wasting things, even those things I could replace with something that’s a little more environmentally-friendly. With that in mind, this is how I’ve solved the food problem:
Eastern purple coneflower and gloriosa: These native flowers are well-suited to local soil, moisture, and water conditions and provide a food source for some smaller birds (notably goldfinches) and a couple of butterfly species. They stop flowering and producing seed in the fall, when the migratory birds start to leave. I also happen to like the way they look and appreciate the fact that they don’t require much attention.
Planted from organic heirloom seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, these collectively cost me about $9.
Some kind of exotic honeysuckle: They’re not native trees, but they’re mature and they bear berries that several bird species eat. They were already here when I bought the place, so they incur no added costs to meet the certification requirement.
Traditional seed feeder: This is an exception to my low-maintenance principle. As much as I like to restore natural systems and let nature do its thing, I’m cognizant of the fact that many of my neighbors aren’t doing this. I feel motivated to pick-up a little of the slack. Also, I plan to participate in Cornell’s winter bird census for my young son’s benefit, which means I’ll need a feeder anyway. More on that in the fall.
I picked-up my feeder for about $20 from Lowe’s, but one can find them at local hardware stores, wild-bird centers, garden centers, craft stores, &c. If you have some scrap wood sitting around, it’s also fairly easy to make one. Plans are available at your local library and all over the Web. If you have more time than I did this spring, I encourage you to buy local, or build one yourself.
Worth noting, I’ve also designated a corner of my backyard as a wild area. I’ve pulled out some exotic plants and transplanted a healthy Canada thistle that the birds introduced earlier into my front yard. I will remain vigilant about exotic plants (my neighbors seem to have lost some decisive battles in the War on Kudzu), but will generally let nature take its course there. I expect to see some pokeweed, more thistle, and perhaps some coneflower or gloriosa that the birds carry from elsewhere in my yard.
I’ll update this post with some pictures, if it ever stops raining.

Where the wild things are

Among the commitments and self-appointed tasks that have kept me away from the blog over the last few weeks has been making some changes to the Dunhill home. While I’ve undertaken a variety of green upgrades and renovations since Mrs. and I moved-in back in the fall of 2006, wildlife issues have been especially on my mind this spring.
The ways people have built and developed cities, suburbs, agricultural lands, and mine lands, particularly over the last century or so, can be very disruptive to plant and animal life. Even if we ignore any possible responsibility to care for nonhuman species for their own sake, these species provide important benefits to people. Native birds, for instance, are important for replanting native trees, which support communities of other plants and animals, which collectively contribute to clean water that people depend on. For a simpler example, houses with mature trees and flowers around them have higher average sale prices and spend fewer days on the market.
The National Wildlife Federation has a great program to encourage people to make their homes more wildlife-friendly. The Certified Wildlife Habitats program provides guidance on how to reduce negative impacts and realize positive impacts on wildlife. To become certified, participants need points in five areas: Food sources, water sources, places for cover, places to raise young, and sustainable gardening.
Most of my solutions are driven at least in part by the amount of time I have to devote to this project. Between family, work, school, and community commitments, I generally have to sacrifice on cost in order to actually get these things done. However, many of these solutions can be accomplished at little or no cost if you have the time and the inclination. I’ll let you know how I’m faring and how I’m solving each of the issues outlined in the certification program.

Image sources:
National Wildlife Federation
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History