At Home With Nature : Homeowners do their part to help preserve nature by turning their backyards into wildlife refuges
Growing up in the 1960s as a San Fernando Valley kid, I cartwheeled barefoot across meadows, slithered up fragrant eucalyptus trunks and hunted down polliwogs in the marshy, muddy dirt wash near our new tract home.
One summer day, bulldozers thundered through my wash, smoothing its walls for a cement casing. Stepping across the clods of overturned earth, I looked up at the bulldozer driver and asked: “Where did you put the frogs?”
“We moved them,” he lied.
And another slice of nature bit the dust.
These days, it’s tough for a kid, or an adult, to find wide open spaces or creepy crawlers in urban Southern California neighborhoods.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no wildlife here.
“You’ve got to make your own wilderness where you are,” said Evelyn Stonewall, who in the last 30 years has seen the land around her house in Orange metamorphose from “an absolute paradise” of groves and meadows into an endless sea of homes and antennas, sidewalks and streets.
But when Stonewall, 74, steps into her own backyard, she steps into a jungle, alive with pine trees and bushtits, mulberry trees and mockingbirds, hibiscus and hummingbirds.
She’s planted sage, cosmos, herbs, camellias, roses, strawberries and fruit trees. And these delectable edibles bring in butterflies, orioles, tree creepers, squawking jays, yellow and purple finches and “jillions” of sparrows.
“They’re fun to watch. I’ve even had parrots,” said Stonewall, who also admits to having “a real fixation with ladybugs,” which she buys by the box and releases into her yard.
Come nightfall, opossums and raccoons take over Stonewall’s yard,
and for the last 20 years she has enjoyed the dignified company of an adopted desert tortoise, an endangered animal that is registered with the U.S. Department of Fish and Game.
In fact, Stonewall’s average-size yard supports so much wildlife that it recently became registered as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.
With its motto of “Working for the Nature of Tomorrow,” the Washington-based federation began the backyard habitat program in 1973 to establish a “network of mini-refuges in the backyards of concerned homeowners.”
Because, as Stonewall put it, “these animals are in tough shape out there.”
So far, 16,500 backyards have been registered with the federation, with about 800 of those in California. To qualify, a backyard gardener must show, with a schematic drawing of the plantings and a written list, that the yard provides the four basic elements that wildlife need to survive: food, water, cover and places to raise young. (See accompanying chart.)
The program isn’t designed to be elitist, said Craig Tufts, a naturalist with the federation and manager of the backyard program. He said very few yards are turned down.
However, some applications are sent back with suggested changes.
“Some yards are rejected because people don’t provide water,” said Tufts, whose quarter-acre yard in Virginia attracts 40 kinds of butterflies. “[Some homeowners] think three out of four [elements] is OK. But it’s not. And some people put out 50 bird feeders and think that’s OK. But it’s really the plants that provide the food.” (See accompanying chart for foods the animals eat.)
For Southern Californians considering turning their yards into critter-friendly habitats, Tufts suggests cutting back on two things: lawns and chemicals. He chuckles when he describes the typical tract-home yard: “One or two specimen trees, foundation shrubs and the rest turf, which should be as green as possible for as much of the year as possible.”
Of course, an over-manicured, over-fertilized expanse of lawn, saturated with pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, cannot support much beyond its own green self and will probably not be of use to wildlife struggling to survive.
Actually, Tufts pointed out, luring wild birds and some insects (praying mantises and ladybugs, for instance) into yards was the standard form of insect control 100 years ago, before poisonous chemicals were invented. Today, with increasing awareness and concern for Earth’s well-being, birds and insects as pest controllers are coming back into fashion.
“You help the animals out and they’ll help you out,” said Santa Barbara paleontologist Barry James, 44, who wouldn’t consider using chemicals on his backyard wildlife habitat.
Instead, he and his wife, April Rhodes, 42, count on birds, lizards and even bats to devour the flying and crawling insects that thrive and multiply there.
Still, Rhodes said, “we love insects.” She pointed out an ant colony, recalling how when she waters, the ants run into the flooded nest, each carrying out a tiny white egg. “I feel so bad sometimes, but my plants need water.”
Three years ago, when the couple bought their fixer-upper home on an extra-large lot, they had to haul out 10 dump-truck loads of trash, concrete, old fences and rusty bicycles. Soon after, the planting began--in earnest.
Today, the couple’s corner of California is truly a paradise, filled with trees (liquid amber, cypress, redwood, spruce, junipers, pine, oak, coral, eucalyptus), shrubs (toyon, fir, Japanese maple), flowers, cacti and ferns, as well as trails, bridges and even a waterfall created to provide water to animals. And the animals took notice: 18 months ago, Rhodes barely had enough room on the Backyard Wildlife Habitat application to list the animals her land attracts: woodpeckers, owls, ravens, mice, lizards, swallows, towhees, frogs, scrub jays, finches, sparrows and more. A red fox even visits in the mornings.
Both Rhodes and James said they are honored that birds that nest on the property (rather than migrating flocks that will sometimes touch down for a quick meal) will bring their new babies to the feeder outside the couple’s bedroom window.
“You start noticing that these are not just birds flying by,” James said. “They have families, just like people.”
Rhodes sums up her and her husband’s contribution to their wildlife companions: “We make their survival a little easier. It’s tough out there for them. And it gives us so much pleasure.”
Gayle Christensen, a schoolteacher and novelist who lives in Ontario, credits her “mothering instinct” for leading her to create a wildly verdant backyard, officially registered six years ago as a Wildlife Backyard Habitat. Her yard now is home to opossums, “ornery” scrub jays and “wonderful little birds.”
“We’re providing something that’s not being provided by every parking lot and shopping center,” Christensen said. “We’re a stopover for them [birds] between San Bernardino and Los Angeles.”
From the air, Christensen’s overgrown backyard probably does beckon, with its pond, shaggy stand of berry-bearing heavenly bamboo, carrotwood trees, crepe myrtle, flowering Indian Hawthorne and fruit-laden fig, apricot, almond and plum trees.
“I saw a giant butterfly the other day,” Christensen said. “And I thought, my God, I’ve not seen a butterfly in so long. It was like Costa Rica.”
She visited Costa Rica recently with her husband, Robert, a newspaperman, and this year they will tour Russia. But the traveling life is no barrier to nurturing wildlife, Christensen said.
“It’s not like you have to do a lot of work,” she said. “Once you have it in there, it takes care of itself. And it’s really for the birds and creatures. It’s really not for us.”
Truth be told, not everyone in urban neighborhoods is overjoyed with overgrown yards and unbridled population explosions of “pests.” Tufts, of the National Wildlife Federation, said he has issued “emergency” backyard habitat certificates to homeowners who were in danger of violating their community’s weed ordinance unless they could prove they had a plan.
“I still have a few neighbors who regard me with some suspicion,” said Tufts, who encourages backyard naturalists and others to accept a little less perfection in weed and insect control in exchange for supporting the web of life.
In Sylmar, Louise and Fred Bickle wondered recently what happened to a friendly squirrel that was a regular diner at the peanut-filled pan in the Bickles’ backyard. One day, a neighbor commented that she finally “got rid of that squirrel.”
“I don’t know how people get these ideas,” Louise Bickle, 78, said of widespread fear and destruction of wildlife.
“They [squirrels] have got a lot after them--cats and dogs and people,” said Fred Bickle, 79. “Everyone’s against them.”
But in the Bickles’ narrow pine-tree-shaded backyard, which was certified by the federation four years ago, the furry critters, birds and even insects are cherished.
“We have a picnic watching the red ants,” said Fred, a retired home builder who has created a shady brick patio where the couple spend their leisure hours. “They come by here carrying things bigger than they are.”
And when the Bickles’ visiting great-granddaughter, Marcee, 4, started to stomp out the ant colony, Louise said, “Oh, no, we don’t kill things here. If they don’t hurt us, we don’t hurt them.”
“Now, she’s so fascinated with the ants,” Louise said. “She comes to see what they’re carrying.”
The Bickles began creating their nature-filled backyard in 1971, when they moved to the neighborhood from rural Agoura, where they feared that wildfires that had come close to burning their home would one day do so. “We have to move,” they said.
But they also decided that they “couldn’t leave nature.”
At first, they put out bird seed and water in their yard, and they were soon joined by hungry feathered guests. After that, the squirrels scampered up for peanuts. And opossums were eventually spotted frozen in fright on the back fence.
“We’re working on butterflies now,” Louise said. “You don’t see them much anymore.”
Even the fat, black bumblebees are respected and revered by the Bickles, who watch them bore into the wood of the patio awning by day and “clean house” by night. They laugh at how they have to move their chairs in the evenings to avoid being sprayed with bits of sawdust.
Smiling up into a pine tree, its boughs vibrating with dozens of twittering birds that Louise figures are “getting filled up before bedtime,” she said: “We feel like we’re not in the city. We feel like we’re off somewhere on our own.”
Getting the Word
For an information packet on the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Habitat Program (which includes a lighthearted, easy-to-read paperback book, “The Backyard Naturalist,” by federation naturalist Craig Tufts), send $2 plus $3.25 postage and handling to: National Wildlife Foundation, 1400 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-2266. Or you can order by phone at (800) 432-6564.
What Wildlife Needs in Yard
Food
For birds, this includes well-stocked bird feeders with sunflower seeds, which are an excellent source of protein. The most wholesome food comes from plants (flowers, berries, seeds and nuts) and from insects (including flies, ants, grasshoppers, sow bugs, mosquitoes and spiders). Other wildlife also prefer insects; bats are said to eat up to 500 insects a day. For those eschewing chemical pesticides, the more bats the better. Lizards are also notoriously insectivorous.
Water
This is an element the backyard wildlife enthusiast tends to forget. Ponds are nice for birds, lizards, insects and frogs. But birdbaths, on pedestals or on the ground, will do fine. Water should be two to three inches deep for bathing, and it must be clean: Scrubbing of the dishes may be necessary every few days.
Cover
Although it is probably ill-advised, and probably impossible, to subvert nature’s food chain, many wildlife lovers don’t care to see tiny bird visitors slaughtered by larger winged hunters. Berry- and seed-bearing plants provide places to hide, but bird feeders set out in the open can put tiny birds at risk. One solution: Place feeders near trees or bushes so little birds can perch near the feeders, assess the situation and make their leap for lunch.
Another solution: Build a two-tiered platform feeder, made from two wooden disks set about four inches apart on a pole. Larger birds eat the seed on top, while teeny ones feast unnoticed and unmolested underneath. To attract lizards to your yard, remember that a low rock wall looks like a condo complex to them.
Places to raise young
In the wild, animals find their nesting places in leafy and dead trees, shrubs, rock crannies and underground. Those elements in your yard can be supplemented by bird boxes, and the size of the entrance hole will determine the size of the bird that uses it. In April, in Rhodes’ Santa Barbara yard, a towhee found her way into a small greenhouse, made a nest in a bromeliad and raised her babies there in warmth and safety.
What Wildlife Eats
This is a partial list of what different types of wildlife eat:
Butterflies: lavender, cosmos, day lily, buddleia, zinnia, phlox, lilac and yarrow.
Hummingbirds: trumpet honeysuckle, coral bells, scarlet salvia, scarlet petunia, scarlet penstemon and scarlet paintbrush.
Mockingbirds: insects such as beetles, ants, bees, wasps and grasshoppers; plant foods: grapes, California pepper tree, fig and cedar.
Robins: caterpillars, beetles and earthworms; plant foods such as California pepper tree, grape, prune, cherry, raspberry and apple.
Finches: aphids and caterpillars; plant foods such as cultivated fruits, weed seeds, fig and mustard.
Towhee: beetles, ants, grasshoppers, moths and crickets; plant foods such as oats, barley, rye grass and fescue grass.
Bats: flies, moths, flying ants, mosquitoes and ground beetles.
