Tag Archive for: birds

Going Native in Your Urban Garden

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Many corporate facilities are located in urban and industrial areas, where wildlife habitat tends to occur in small, isolated patches. In areas such as these, projects like native gardens are all the more important for the conservation of pollinators, birds, and other native animals.

Urban gardening with native species is suitable to a variety of settings, from urban corporate landscapes to home gardens. Like urban tree planting initiatives, native gardening projects provide multiple benefits for urban neighborhoods. They can help to revitalize urban neighborhoods by improving visual aesthetics and providing a place for people to reconnect with nature and with their neighbors. Urban gardens also contribute to cooler urban temperatures, produce oxygen, filter rainfall, and improve infiltration. In addition, urban gardens that include native plants can provide habitat for pollinators, songbirds, and other urban wildlife.

Not sure where to begin? Whether you’re starting from scratch with a new garden or revamping an existing garden at your facility, it will be easiest to first decide what your goals are for the garden. Do you want lots of colorful, delicate butterflies, or maybe zippy little hummingbirds? Try planting some colorful nectar-bearing flowering forbs, vines, and shrubs. Or maybe you’d rather attract birds that will fill your garden with their songs? You’ll want to plant shrubs that produce lots of berries and forbs that produce seeds, as well as trees for nesting if you have the room. Or perhaps you’d prefer to manage stormwater runoff with your garden—you could plant native vegetation that can tolerate occasional flooding to create a rain garden.

We’ve got a number of articles and other resources in our Knowledge Center to help you learn about native gardening – check out some of these to get you started:

If you’d like specific recommendations on how to design your urban garden for wildlife, don’t hesitate to contact us at WHC@wildlifehc.org.

Read more WHC blogs.

Bats and Birds Will Eat Your Mosquitos

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Hate mosquitos? You’re not alone! Although they are an important part of the ecosystem, too many mosquitos can create quite a nuisance. They buzz in your ear and leave red, itchy welts when they bite, and some even transmit diseases like West Nile Virus and malaria.

You wouldn’t know it from their cute faces, but these little brown bats are voracious insect predators, and can eat thousands of mosquitos in a single night. Source: USFWS.

You wouldn’t know it from their cute faces, but these little brown bats are voracious insect predators, and can eat thousands of mosquitos in a single night. Source: USFWS.

Luckily, nature has provided us with many natural mosquito predators to help keep them under control.

Bats in temperate areas of the world tend to be insectivorous, with voracious appetites for mosquitos and other flying insect pests. A single bat can eat about 1,200 insects an hour, and about 6,000-8,000 insects a night. Female bats that are nursing young may even eat up to their weight in insects nightly.

Insectivorous birds like purple martins, swallows, eastern kingbirds, and yellow warblers are also known for eating flying insects, including mosquitos, though to a lesser extent.

So if you have a problem with mosquitos and other flying pest insects, try enhancing your site’s habitat to attract these natural insect predators. You could install artificial structures that provide nesting and roosting habitat, such as nest boxes for birds and bat houses or other artificial roosts for bats. You should also make sure the surrounding habitat provides the resources and complexity needed by the species you want to attract, including plenty of native vegetation that will provide additional food sources and cover habitat. Not only will you contribute to conservation of these species, you’ll also be helping yourself!

It’s important to remember that none of these species will provide a singular solution to controlling mosquitos in all locations. Rather, attracting natural predators is an important step in long-term planning for reducing mosquito numbers in your area.

Read more WHC blogs.

Providing Homes for Burrowing Owls

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WHC member Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. recently partnered up with WHC’s Tucson office and the Arizona-based raptor rescue organization Wild at Heart to construct artificial burrows for rescued burrowing owls at Freeport’s Safford Operations facility. Freeport produced a video about this project and gave us permission to share it. You can watch the video to see the volunteers in action and find out more about this fantastic project.

If you live out in the western parts of the U.S., you may recognize the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia). Unlike most owls, they are diurnal (active during the day) and nest in underground burrows. However, they don’t dig their own burrows, relying instead on the burrows dug by other animals like prairie dogs. They can often be seen standing or perching near the burrow entrance, ever on the lookout for predators like coyotes and larger raptors. (As wildlife photographer Mac Stone described this behavior, they are “so completely neurotic it’s comical.”)

A common strategy for helping burrowing owls on both public and private lands has been the installation of artificial burrows, such as the burrows installed at the Safford Operations. This project is particularly useful in areas where burrowing small mammals are not desirable.

If you have an interest in installing artificial burrows at your facility, please contact your WHC Regional Biologist.

Read more WHC blogs.

Designing & Building Barn Owl Nest Boxes

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The IBM Almaden Research Center, located in San Jose, California, is pioneering the design of artificial nest boxes by partnering with a dedicated volunteer.

Steve Simmons of Merced, California, developed a Barn Owl box plan that has been in extensive use throughout the Central Valley after years of experimenting with and documenting the siting, mounting, and design of artificial nest boxes for Barn Owls. As a shop teacher, he organized the student production of over 10,000 Barn Owl boxes, which were sold to local ranchers for pest control. The sales from the boxes provided over $168,000 in scholarship money for his students over a nine-year period. His personal monitoring of Barn Owl boxes (currently 200 annually at 8 sites) has led to an enormous amount of data on year-round behavior, reproductive habits, diet, predators, habitat requirements, and nest box preferences. Mr. Simmons and other volunteers have placed seven Barn Owl nest boxes at the Almaden Research Center, all of which are monitored on a regular basis.

Download a copy of the Simmons Barn Owl Nest Box Design and start your own project!

Read more WHC blogs.

Tag Archive for: birds

three yellow birds on branch

Birds: Nature’s Key Performance Indicators

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A call to action for corporate landowners to restore, enhance and manage habitat for birds
Sponsored by Ontario Power Generation

Birds are everywhere. From the grey pigeon seen on city streets to the brightly feathered tropical species found in rain forests, birds have colonized every continent and evolved to inhabit niches both specialized and general. Because they are everywhere, birds can easily be the focus of a corporate conservation effort. Most species respond well to conservation management, making them an ideal indicator to overall ecosystem health. With accessible technology and an increased need, now is the time for corporate landowners to engage in bird conservation projects.

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Grassland Birds in Decline: How You Can Help

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View the webinar
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Grassland birds are in decline across North America. Can your meadow or grassland habitat help to support populations of these resident and migratory species? Would you like to move beyond nest box projects to see your meadow or grasslands come alive with the sound and movement of native avian species, further strengthening your habitat restoration goals? In this webinar, you’ll hear from experts in grassland birds, land management and partnership building who will provide resources applicable to grasslands and meadows, both large and small, in regions across the United States.

You’ll learn:

  • The current state of grasslands bird species and factors that contribute to their decline
  • How specific management practices can help to bolster breeding populations and what programs and partnerships can help you create habitat for migratory species
  • Tools for better monitoring of grassland species and how your efforts support your Conservation Certification

Presenters:

  • Daniel Casey, Coordinator, Northern Great Plains Joint Venture
  • Joel Merriman, Conservation Specialist, Wildlife Habitat Council

View the webinar