Dan Rouse - How to Attract Wildlife to Your Garden: Foods They Like, Plants They Love, Shelter They Need

Wildlife in the broadest sense is made up of the living thingsbirds, mammals, insects, and reptiles, as well as plantsthat occur in a place.

In our cities, fields, and hills, the wildlife is clearly very different from wildlife in other settings, such as African savannahs and the jungles of South America. But every location, including your own garden (however small that may be), contains a range of wildlife that visits and makes its home there. Some wild species are native (they have been part of the wildlife of that area for millennia), while others have been introduced from different parts of the world, deliberately or accidentallybut all make up the local wildlife. Together, they form an ecosystema community of interacting species. As you get to know the wildlife in your area and garden, you will see how species behave, why they visit or live in your garden, and when certain species are around.

Gardens can offer different benefits to wildlife, from a steady source of food and water to shelter and a safe place to breed and raise young or to hibernate in the winter. The range of wildlife that can visit a garden over the course of a year is astonishing. Larger creatures, such as foxes, deer, snakes, and even birds of prey may be exciting to see, but its possible to find fascination in even the tiniest garden inhabitant, such as a pond skater or centipede.

One of the main appeals of wildlife is the fact that it changes throughout the seasons. Many of us mark points in the year by the first robin we see, or by spotting a familiar butterfly in spring. We notice birds arriving in our gardens to set up for nesting and breeding, and we hear and see pollinators throughout the spring and summer gathering nectar from our plants, enabling the flowers to set seed and form fruits.

Common species that spend their whole year in a place are known as resident species. They breed, feed, and overwinter in the same location. Woodpeckers, raccoons, opossums, gray squirrels, and deer mice are all examples of residents that are in the garden all year.

Migrants are species that spend a certain amount of time in one area and the rest of the year in another. Some travel from the US each year to warmer climates to breed and find food during the winter months, returning in spring. Other more northerly species migrate to the US in winter for warmer weather. Migrants include birds such as goldfinches and rose-breasted grosbeaks, moths such as pink-spotted hawkmoths and black cutworms, butterflies including common buckeye and monarch, and bats such as hoary and silver-haired bats.

Occasionally, you may see a scarce speciesusually a birdthat has wandered or been blown off course and out of its usual home range. Its known as a vagrant species.