There are three basic needs that must be met to attract wildlife to your backyard:

--Food

--Water

--Shelter

To have songbirds gather around your porch stoop, food must be used to attract them. You can buy the different seeds available in stores and use certain kitchen scaps to subsidize the wildlife budget, like grain cereals, breads, fruits, etc. We incorporated berry bushes and other perennial plantings that songbirds feed on. The birds feed on the seed harvest until snow blankets and covers the ground. The use of a compost pile is also a good source of food for wildlife; however, it is best not to place meat scraps in compost because it draws rats. Many times we have seen rabbits come out of hiding at midnight, in the light of the moon, and feed on cabbage leaves, carrots, and celery pieces.

Water is more difficult to keep open and fresh year-round. We have two small garden ponds, and we keep one open during the winter by using a pond heater; much like the heater farmers use to keep watering tanks ice free for livestock. You can use a birdbath or dog waterer with a warmer with similar results.

Shelter for wildlife can be evergreen bushes and trees, woodpile, wooden housing (like bat and birdhouses), deciduous bushes, eaves of buildings, etc.

The Cedar Waxwings come by the dozens around the third week of March each year and clean out the red berries from the American Highland Cranberry Bush. We know that once the waxwings feed on the bush they move on in the migratory push northward. It is always about four weeks later that the hummingbirds show up for the season.

We have been setting up six hummingbird feeding stations for about twenty years now. Every spring one little guy would show up at our sliding glass door that leads from the living room to the north deck to let me know they were back and ready for the feeders. Spring of 2008 he failed to show. It was a rough spring with natural disasters across the US. However, later in the summer a new little guy had learned to hover at the north deck sliding glass door to let me know they wanted fresh nectar. He learned that I would see him as I sat in my lounger working on my laptop. We use the red feeders so we did not have use expenses on red food coloring.

Using 4 cups of hot tap water, stir in 1 cup of white granulated sugar until the sugar disolves. Let the syrup cool. It will be enough to fill five feeders enough to feed the hummers fresh nectar. Try to change the feeders every three days or more often when outside temperatures are high. The nectar will ferment in the heat.

This year we have decided to raise chickens as layers to benefit from the fresh eggs. Since we are paying higher prices for eggs these days, we have found that the amount to feed laying hens is the same as buying eggs each month. We use a lot of eggs in our cooking since we make everything from scratch and egg products are found in many recipes; plus we will have extra to sell and give away. We acquired our chicks at one day old; they will be laying eggs around August of this year (2009). We can then use composted chicken manure as fertilizer to our garden beds.

A good farmer or gardener always grow extra food for themselves and enough to leave for wildlife after harvest.

No amount of money can buy the feeling of statisfaction that comes from growing your own food and processing it. We sit in our recliners after a long day of standing on our feet; harvesting, cleaning, prepping, and canning our produce. We sit down after taking the hot, steaming jars from the canner and placing them on a towel on the kitchen counter. The satisfaction comes from counting the number of jars that seal, alerting us by the ping of each lid as it sealed. This feeling is satisfaction and the sound of success.

Sometimes our backyard is easy pickings for weak predators. Every now and then this particular Red Tail Chicken Hawk hunts in our backyard when prey is scarce in its usual hunting ground. In the past, we have seen an injured American Falcon and Bald Eagle in our backyard.