With a little effort and careful planning, your landscape can be a safe place for wildlife — feathered and furry alike.
From urban areas to the burbs, it’s not uncommon to cross paths with various types of wildlife. They may visit your yard from time to time, or even hang out awhile if they feel safe there.
Some are prey, some are predators, and some are both.
But with a little understanding, some careful planning, and a commitment to safety, feathered and furry wildlife can coexist in your landscape — and you may even enjoy watching them all frolic about.
I spoke with SAWS Conservation planner and avid birder, Brad Wier, about how he keeps his water-saver wildscape safe for feathery residents and other wildlife too.
In winter, why is safe cover and shelter important for wildlife?
It’s important for birds and all wildlife. Lizards, butterflies and other insects can hole up in branches and under bark or leaf piles. But for wild birds, especially on cold windy days, any shelter is appreciated for cover and food sources. (I’ve seen hummingbirds frozen dead in the mornings after a sudden hard freeze.)
Once the leaves fall, it’s more difficult for birds to find safe shelter and food in the home backyard — especially in a highly manicured landscape where plants are trimmed short or cut back. It’s why we encourage and remind everyone not to cut perennials back too soon, but to wait until the end of winter.
What are the dangers to local birds?
Besides the weather, for migrating birds that don’t know the area, there’s no shortage of dangers. Glass is a huge one — birds just don’t see glass, so big windowpanes can be dangerous, especially when they’re right next to a tree. Birds can be fooled by the reflections and crash into it. We humans create plenty of problems. Power tools and brush cutting can take out a lot of bird nests in spring. Even glue traps are problematic. Of course, there’s no shortage of dangers when you live outside. I’ve seen bullfrogs eating birds, and hawks, owls and even blue jays eat small birds too. My neighborhood has a lot of feral cats too.
How has your experience been with feral cats visiting your home?
There are a lot of feral cats around my neighborhood and my yard is mostly unfenced, so finding ways to keep birds safe in their own space has required effort. The cat repellant mats you see online don’t really work in the yard. Last year the neighbors and I worked together to sterilize local strays (the Feral Cat Coalition was a great resource!), which has helped stabilize the population. But since it’s trap-neuter-release, there are still feral cats around. So even though I consider my landscape bird friendly, they’re always at risk.
What is your backyard landscape like?
You might call it a cross between a wildscape and an English garden — so although it’s been obsessively fussed over, the maintenance is low, with native plants allowed to grow to provide cover, berries, seeds, food and shade without a lot of extra effort and water from me.
I do a little brush sculpting to keep the pathways tidy and pretty, but mostly I try to grow stuff that won’t need constant trimming during the season — like mowing, blowing, motors and constant maintenance that scare off all the hobbits and unicorns. I’ve specifically selected native plants that could attract birds and give them a safe place to perch off the ground.
What kind of birds have visited your home?
I really enjoy hummingbirds and they respond well to WaterSaver flowers and salvias so I think they like coming back to my place. I’ve had an adult rufous hummingbird return to my house every winter for the past few years, so by this time I kind of think of her as a pet. I’m sad every April when I realize she’s finally flown back north, but she comes back at the end of the summer and stays the winter.
My other birds are typical of suburban San Antonio. I don’t have oak trees or a continuous shade canopy, so it’s not really “forest” birds. But I enjoy anything that sticks around and claims a territory and sings every day — wrens, redbirds, mockingbirds, thrashers and kingbirds.
The thrasher is kind of a favorite, a Harry Potter spirit animal for me. Related to mockingbirds but very South Texas, he runs around on the ground. They’re camouflaged, but with ermine spots on the belly. They have a weird vocal repertoire five times bigger than a mockingbird’s. They’ve nested in the backyard shrubs and in spring the fledglings run around on the ground.
What kind of bird houses or feeding stations do you have in your wildscape that birds enjoy?
I don’t put out bird houses or sunflower seed, since at my small place it would mostly attract flocks of sparrows and doves and drive the migrants and thrashers away. I keep hummingbird feeders instead.
But mostly what I provide is clean water.
I keep three pedestal bird baths with solar-powered water wigglers — the rule of threes — along with a couple extras that hang in trees. Depending on the time of day, a visiting bird is likely to see a solar-powered fountain running somewhere in the yard. Even on the coldest days of winter they’ll make a habit of stopping in for a bath.
Is it a lot of water?
No, but there are frequent refillings. I keep the bird baths pretty shallow and filled with river rocks to keep the water safe — tiny migrating birds aren’t at all interested in swimming, and if the water looks too deep they’ll pass it by. Refilling daily cuts down a little on the mosquitos and gives me a chance to get outside and get my steps in.
I’ve got a new birdbath now that refills off AC condensate all summer long, so that’s my most conservation-minded bird bath.
How do you discourage community cats from hanging around?
Feral cats constantly find their way into my bird-friendly habitat since the hiding places and water attract them. I would find them jumping and climbing up on top of the bird bath stands and just hanging out.
To discourage them, I raised the bird baths higher using old pieces of yard art, like broken chimineas so it’s more difficult for visiting cats to jump onto. You can also stack and tie branches up around the bird bath pedestals or place the stands inside loose brush piles. This has two benefits: it prevents cats from jumping up in the first place (they don’t like jumping into branches) and it provides a safe place for birds to land and perch and survey the scene before hopping into the water. I keep little stacks of wood anywhere I don’t want cats getting comfortable.
As a bonus, the wood stacks protect birds from the neighborhood hawks too by giving them an easy place to duck for cover. Cooper’s hawks patrol bird baths just as eagerly as cats.
It also gives me the opportunity to do a little creative brush sculpting and arranging.
What other wildlife visit your home?
I get plenty of pollinators, bees, fireflies and butterflies, earthworms, skunks and lizards, hawks, owls, squirrels, raccoons, possums and — an extra special treat — foxes.