http://www.care2.com/greenliving/feng-shui-to-attract-backyard-wildlife.html
Feng Shui to Attract Backyard Wildlife
In the month before my mother died, she took utter delight watching a robin who built a nest in the window box on her front porch, laid beautiful turquoise blue eggs, and then fed the chicks work. I have a picture of the nest full of eggs, nestled under the begonias, and remember my mother’s pleasure. Last winter we had a pair of foxes living in the nearby woods. I’d watch them scurry along their trails when the dogs were inside, and they brought no end of family discussion and interest. Are they still here? I hope so.
How to enhance attracting wildlife to your home? According to Norma Lehmeier Hartie, author of Harmonious Environments, a key is representing the four basic elements of water, fire, Earth and air.
Earth: Make sure there is food for animals–fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, seeds, fruits or nectar.
Water: Wildlife need still or moving fresh water.
Fire: Give wildlife places to shelter warmly–dense shrubbery, trees, fallen logs.
Air: Make sure they have safe nesting places to raise their young, protected from dogs, cats, and other wildlife. Meandering edges and less lawn will give wildlife more places to duck for safety. (And speaking of lawns, eliminate your use of herbicides so as not to harm wildlife.)
Hartie also recommends growing plants and flowers that are indigenous to your areas, and to decide what animals you would like to attract and research what habitats and food they need.
She also offers the thoughtful suggestion to find comfortable seating to encourage long periods of enjoyable time spent outdoors to watch the life around you. I’d add to make some special places inside your home, too, where you can watch the wildlife outdoors unobserved. I have a bay window that opens out to a black birch forest, and it is from here I have spent many an hour watching for the foxes. A friend has a similar bay window around their kitchen table, facing an array of bird feeders, and her family has many enjoyable meals watching the birds that come to visit.
Loss of habitat is a major threat to wildlife around the world, so every bit we can do to help them the better, especially because there is very little public land left.
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42 comments
add your comment »My acre is a certified Wildlife Habitat. I am very proud of this accomplishment . I had been working on it for over 20 years. I really am a gardener but it seemed like everything I was planting was enjoyed by all the creatures as much as me. My favorite are the butterflies. I have hundreds of them. I love watching them flutter by without a care in the world. It is a lot of constant physical work but with gardens comes wildlife of all kinds shapes and sizes. I once had a farmers hog visit the yard and a herd of cattle broke lose one day and wandered by!
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Thank you for the wonderful ideas - it would be absolutely wonderful to be able to feed these beautiful wildlife creatures.
Brightest Blessings.
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Animals are like chlldren, they are at the mercy of what we dish out to them, or what we don't dish out. They are both innocent in nature and they both need our respect for a fruitful life.
Nice post Ginlar!
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I've been a wildlife nut as long as I can remember. Just yesterday a Chickadee slammed into a window in my garage. It fell to the ground on it's back. I picked it up and kept it upright, it didn't look well and I thought it wouldn't make it. I continued to hold it as it's head tilted back beyond normal, then dipped it's head low nearer to my hand and then back to normal postition. It's eyes mostly closed and I feared the worse as I asked the Lord and Lady for assisstance. In a little while it's feet began to grip my fingers, then sitting upright/normal, but wouldn't fly away, so I set it on a branch in an evergreen tree. I kept watch on it now and then, finally it had gone. Yes I checked the area I had set it and on the ground and it was good it must have flown off.
Windows - the worst thing for wildlife. They see reflection of trees or sky and think they can go into it, not that it's a reflection and that's when they hurt themselves. Too bad there can't be a none reflective window, that would save alot of innocent animals.
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i appreciate this story. all too often where i live and i think many times in most places anymore today, people move to places where they can be "closer to nature" and then complain about the wildlife when they encounter it or visa versa. we should embrace wildlife and learn to coexist with it - in the country or in the city.
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We live in New Hampshire. We put out alot of bird feeders and suet cakes. We have a good amount of visitors that come every day. We also get the bears coming mostly in the spring and this time of year. Many times with their cubs...They are such beautiful animals. Its a real treat to be able to see them so close.
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When I lived in northern Canada, I had foxes trotting through the yard, black bears making inroads on my garbage box and once, a polar bear striding stately across the harbour ice. And once, out by the woodpile, I held my breath and watched the shadow-shape of a wolf drifting through the falling snow just outside our fence. It remains one of my 'wonder moments'.
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I have bird feeders in my backyard here in Florida. I use regular wildbird food and in the winter months I use thistle to feed the goldfinches who visit from the north. We also get ibis in our yard after it rains. The only wildlife I don't want in my yard are alligators!!!! I can't wait to move back north someday to see deer and other animals.
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Where I live we attract different wildlife, some good, some bad. I love wildlife, but I get upset because I was trying to raise ducks and chicks and they were getting killed day or night. So now I am taking care of what I have, and I get gourmet bird seed and hummingbird nectar and food.
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thank You all noted!
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