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Providing Places to Raise Young
A place to raise young is a final feature to finish a backyard habitat. It is not just where babies are kept. This feature serves many purposes.
With the destruction of natural areas, animals have fewer andfewer places to reproduce and rear offspring. We can provide severalfeatures to help them out. Eastern garter snakes frequent my backyard. They like the dark moist areas under tree stumps, stones and other crevices. I know they patrol my garden at night, eating slugs, grasshoppers, and dead animals. One evening I spotted a baby Eastern Garter snake slithering through the grass. They are in my backyard reproducing. They hide underneath rock piles and flat stones. I leave the places they like to den undisturbed. Butterflies and moths use plants in my backyard habitat to lay their eggs. Their larva or caterpillar, feed on the leaves. These plants are called butterfly host plants. Numerous insects, beetles other invertebrate use the fallen leaf litter and soil to lay eggs. Here are some examples of the places you can provide for animals to reproduce.
Bat houses, bird houses and other structures can be either hand-made or bought ready-made. This pdf on Building Nest Structures from the North Dakota State Fish and Game Department is extensive. It has structures to build for a wide variety of animals. The Sunflower Naturalist Store has a selection of ready-made houses, platforms and bee houses. For books on Creating a Backyard Habitatvisit the Sunflower Naturalist Store More Pages on Creating aBackyard Habitat: food water cover places to raise young attracting butterflies attracting birds From Places to Raise Young Return to Backyard Habitat
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