Backyard Birds Attracted to a Back or Front Yard Wildlife Habitat (Create it and they will come)
program by Pat Sutton
Pat Sutton will share accounts of the many visitors that have been attracted to the South Jersey wildscape that she and her husband have nurtured for over thirty years (in Goshen, Cape May County). They’ve tallied 212 species of birds and 78 species of butterflies in their tiny one-half-acre wildlife oasis. Each season brings new entertainment, like the winter gathering of 109 White-throated Sparrows feeding on millet scattered on the ground or the summer gathering of 83 Leopard Frogs in their two ponds. Spent hanging baskets left up all winter on the front porch host a pair of Carolina Wrens each freezing-cold winter night, nestled down in the spent petunias – the safest nighttime refuge from the neighbor’s outdoor cats. Spring brings dazzling breeding-plumaged warblers feasting on caterpillars in the Sutton’s woodlot of native trees. Under the “most unexpected” category but undoubtedly drawn by the wealth of caterpillars on this property, a pair of Prothonotary Warblers has nested for the last two years (2015 and 2016) in a wren-roosting basket on the front porch. Dozens of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds entertain from mid-April until mid-September. Sutton will share many “Backyard Habitat For Wildlife TIPS.” Indeed, create a backyard habitat and question each practice as to whether or not it will help or harm wildlife, and birds and other wildlife will come and benefit.