Enter the Heron

The frogs and toads that inhabit our backyard ponds are rewarded with meals provided by the many insects and other invertebrates that are attracted to the habitats we create. The amphibians also serve as food for predators such as snakes, opossums, skunks, raccoons, crows and even large wading birds like the great blue heron. I was shocked one autumn morning a few years when I looked out the window to see a three-foot tall bird only a few steps from my back door. The heron began making its way stealthily around the pond, its long beak pointed to the water’s edge, obviously in hope of spearing some hapless cold-blooded creature.

I’ve yet to see the heron make a kill, but each year at this time it arrives in my backyard and spends several days patrolling the pond. To the bird’s disadvantage, it’s just about this same time that the nearby maple and oak trees begin shedding their leaves and that my wife and I decide to stretch netting over the water to keep the leaves out. I doubt the heron comprehends our actions and I hope it doesn’t take them personally. We’re not purposely denying him a meal or trying to make his life difficult. We’re just trying to keep the pond from becoming choked with leaves and stagnant.

If you have a backyard pond or decide to install one, you’re sure to be rewarded with a daily cast of wildlife characters, including some that will surprise and impress you.

If You Build It …

One sure way to attract wildlife to your backyard is to install a small pond, water being an essential ingredient for life and a prominent feature in most natural habitats. My family and I embarked upon a backyard pond project a number of years ago, but we never seem to complete it. The routine maintenance really doesn’t have to be very labor intensive, but I always seem to be re-landscaping the perimeter or tinkering with the waterfall feature. In some ways it’s very therapeutic.

Installing a pond can be a small project or a huge endeavor, depending on how ambitious you are. Just about all the materials you’ll need can be purchased at the local hardware or department store, and there are an endless number of pamphlets, books and websites that provide step-by-step instructions for the beginning pond installer.

One of the first surprises we received after our pond was dug and filled was the arrival of green frogs, which I had never seen in our backyard before starting the project. About a half dozen showed up within a matter of a few weeks. They hung out all summer long and into the fall, but disappeared well before the water’s surface iced over in winter, only to reappear the next spring. The cycle continues. They still hop from their lily pads into the water when I approach on a warm sunny September afternoon, but it should only be a matter of weeks before they submerge to enter a state of hibernation

Danger from Above

By making your backyard more attractive to wildlife, you invite both predators and prey species in search of water, food and shelter. It’s unavoidable. A bird bath or feeder attracts not only the seed-eaters and insect-eaters, it also attracts bird-eaters. Most experts will tell you to locate bird feeders out in the open to ensure the safety of your avian guests. With an unobstructed view of the skies and landscape that surrounds them, they are less likely to become lunch for lurking felines or dive-bombing raptors.

The sharp-shinned hawk is an aerial acrobat and a lethal predator. The first sign of one’s approach in my backyard is the muffled explosion of wing beats – a dozen or more mourning doves simultaneously taking to the skies as Nature’s version of a heat-seeking missile rockets down upon them from above. All I see is a blur streak past the window, followed instantly by a cloud of feathers from the hawk’s unlucky victim. Within a few seconds the predator begins making a meal of its prey, and it’s only a matter of minutes before he has satisfied his appetite.

Some people find it difficult to observe activity at the top of the food chain – watching one animal take the life of another – but these are normal goings-on in the natural world. A sharp-shinned hawk dive-bombing a dove is no different from a frog snatching a dragonfly from the air and gobbling it down or a spider ensnaring a grasshopper in its sticky web.

A Snake in the Grass

If you haven’t already, sooner or later you’re likely to come upon a small striped serpent in your backyard or perhaps even in your cellar. The eastern garter snake – most people call it “garden snake” – is a common resident of rural and even urban landscapes. Garter snakes don’t grow very long, a three-foot specimen would be a large one and anything bigger would be a “giant” for this species. The most distinguishing mark on its thin brown body is the prominent yellow stripe that runs down the center of its back, flanked by two less distinct stripes on each side.

The frogs, toads and salamanders that I wrote about in the last two blogs happen to be among the garter snake’s favorite foods. However, it will eat most other smaller creatures that cross its path including millipedes, spiders, earthworms, slugs, crayfish, fish, mice, nestling birds and even other smaller snakes. Garter snakes are one of the first snakes to emerge from hibernation in the spring here in the northeast. During the cold winter months they remain hidden and dormant inside rotting stumps and logs, old stone walls or in underground burrows.

Although two types of venomous snake are native to Pennsylvania – rattlesnakes and copperheads – your chances of coming upon them are slim to rare. All snakes can bite, however, and may do so if picked up, but the bites of garter snakes and most other species are not dangerous.

“Morning” Doves

Some creatures are so common around our homes – sparrows and squirrels, for example - that we sometimes forget they are wildlife. Add mourning doves to the list for my backyard. Dozens of them feed and take shelter year round only a few yards from the bay window that looks out from the rear of my kitchen. I can count on seeing them each morning the same as I do my dog and my cats.

The mourning dove’s name doesn’t come from the time of day you might first see it – the morning – but from the male’s plaintive call to females. The species, part of the pigeon family, ranges throughout North America from Canada all the way to Panama. The bird itself is no more than a foot from head to tip of tail and weighs less than half a pound. Seeds make up the overwhelming bulk of its diet, which is why the dove is a regular at my backyard bird feeder seeking corn, millet and sunflower seeds. Having such an enormous range and ready food supply, the mourning dove population is estimated at nearly a half billion individuals.

The passenger pigeon was a close relative of the mourning dove. Biologists believe that it numbered several billion animals in the 19^th century – the most abundant bird on the continent. Unfortunately, uncontrolled hunting drove the species to extinction early in the 20^th century.

Creatures of the Night

If you want to experience the full range of animals that inhabit your backyard, you’ll have to grab a flashlight or strap on a headlamp and take a walk outside after the sun goes down. Otherwise the world of nocturnal creatures will remain a mystery.

The gray tree frog, pictured above, can be abundant and inconspicuous at the same time. During the day, when it’s typically at rest and silent, your chances of finding it are poor, especially because it can vary its color and blend with the vegetation. At night, however, when it is wide awake, vocal and in search of insect prey, its call can be used to guide your flashlight beam through the branches overhead. Before beginning your nighttime exploration, you might consider going online and listening to the calls of native frogs and toads, which are featured on a number of websites. This will aid your search and ensure the proper identification of your quarry.

As you become more familiar with the wildlife that inhabits your backyard and surrounding neighborhoods, you may want to share your findings with others. Consider participating in Wildlife Watch, a citizen science program of the National Wildlife Federation http://www.nwf.org/wildlifewatch/.

Look Closely

A walk through your backyard may not be as thrilling as an African safari. However, if you put on your jungle explorer hat, you’re almost certain to stumble across one of Nature’s miracles right under your nose. The key is to look closely, especially when you spy something out of the ordinary.

Take, for example, the cecropia moth (pictured above) that landed on a stone garden gnome outside a friend’s house one afternoon. Seeing the large beautiful moth was a thrill in itself and a welcome photo opportunity. The moth cooperated beyond our expectations, allowing us to approach closely and me to use my camera’s macro lens. That’s when I noticed two small cream-colored objects near the moth’s hind end. Fastened to the garden sculpture with a brownish “glue” secreted from the insect’s body, the objects turned out to be eggs – the normally unobserved beginning of a new cecropia moth generation. After mating, the female cecropia moth can produce hundreds of eggs, which are typically laid at night on the underside of leaves, so I’m unsure why the one I photographed was active during the day and had chosen a garden ornament during this critical part of its life cycle.

Perhaps the best part of an unusual wildlife sighting is the trip to the library or the internet search afterwards, which help to round out our knowledge of natural history.