This is an excerpt from my latest post at the Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens blog. Click the link below to visit the full post. Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest It seems that any time I talk with somebody about landscaping for wildlife or make a book recommendation, this is the first one [...]
The Bat Conservation Trust in the U.K. has a fantastic resource about urban bat habitat on their website. It’s called the Bat Trail and it’s an interactive website that features the many urban habitats and elements that can be beneficial to bats. It’s aimed at bats of the U.K., but the information is still relevant [...]
Now at The Metropolitan Field Guide you can find Landscape for Wildlife resources and documents. Simply use the ‘Pages’ drop-down menu and navigate to ‘Landscape for Wildlife‘ and click the main page to see resources for all regions, or select your region to find resources by state. All of the documents are from university extensions, [...]
Interesting Nature The Beauty of Insect Eggs:: From the latest issue of National Geographic shows a fascinating side of insect eggs, through a microscope. The details of these structures are simply amazing. Ladybug:: Also from National Geographic, this profile of our aphid-fighting friend highlights some fascinating facts such as there are over 5,000 species worldwide. [...]
Now you can find plant lists for wildlife for each region, and most states in the US, right here on The Metropolitan Field Guide. Just use the ‘Pages’ drop-down menu on the top of this page and go down to ‘Regional Plant Lists’. There you will find lists that cover the US as a whole [...]
Retaining walls are a fact of life for many landscapes, even those with only a slight slope. The majority of walls however, are constructed as a flat surface, stones bound together with mortar which don’t serve any benefit to wildlife. Stone walls however, can be quite beneficial for wildlife if designed and constructed correctly. Even [...]
An Obsession With Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair With A Singular Insect by Sharman Apt Russell, is an excellent book for learning about the life history of butterflies from egg through adult. I was a bit disappointed based on my expectation from the description of the book. I was looking for more information about the [...]
The City of Portland has recently added a whole series of ecoroof seminar videos in addition to the slides they already had on their website. The seminar videos are a good resource for learning about ecoroofs, the benefits, planning, construction, maintenance and more. Be sure to also check out the City of Portland’s Ecoroof Handbook, [...]
While not as significant in the US as in the UK, hedgerows nonetheless offer a valuable design opportunity for wildlife habitat. In the UK they have a very long history, thousands of years in fact. Historically hedgerows were the remnants of woodlands that were cleared for agricultural fields. Later, with the Enclosures Act in the [...]
One of the major habitat elements, after food and shelter, comes water. There are two main routes that can provide water, a pond provides constant water while a rain garden provides constantly changing levels of water. There are many great resources for design and installation of both options. PONDS If the goal is to provide [...]
The NRCS or Natural Resources Conservation Service has some excellent resources available online for download or you can order them free. The first publication is a booklet called Backyard Conservation: Bringing Conservation From the Countryside to Your Backyard and it features many topics such as the benefit of trees and how to plant them, wildlife [...]
National Wildlife Federation Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Backyard Wildlife is a great book by David Mizejewski, published by the National Wildlife Federation. It’s aimed at home owners, but has relevant design information for many aspects of habitat. You won’t find any fluff in this book, which I appreciate, it’s short and to the point. Topics [...]