Basically there are two ways to watch birds, butterflies, and mammals. One way is to hike over hill and dale, swamp and forest, stream and prairie to where the wildlife is you want to see. Another way is to get a comfortable chair for your yard or by your window and invite the wild life to visit you.

Landscaping your yard can be as simple as hanging and filling a bird feeder to planting shrubs, native wild flowers, establishing corridors and green spaces as elaborate as your budget and/or time and space will allow. No matter how extensive your landscape you probably will not attract bald eagles or black bears to your property. But there are many plantings and landscaping you can do.

A vegetative diversity is important to attract a variety of wild life. This diversity contains a mixture of trees (living and dead) shrubs, and greenery. Also native plantings are more resistant to disease and pests and are well adapted to this environment. Some plants are dual purpose; they provide shelter (nesting and/or roosting) and food for birds, or they provide a host plant in the butterfly’s life cycle.

Dogwood has spring flowers and bright red berries in the fall that birds eat. The grey dogwood has less showy flowers but produces more whitish berries for the birds.

Hawthorns are small trees, are attractive year around, and the dense thorny branches provide shelter for a variety of birds.

An evergreen to consider, is the common red cedar. The small blue berries are attractive to birds and the dense low growing limbs provide protection from the winter winds for birds and mammals. White and Scotch pines and blue spruce give good winter protection but produce little for the birds to eat.

Crab apples produce an abundance of food. Choose varieties that produce the small pea-sized apples. These will last into early winter.

Some shrubs to consider are viburnum, black haw, arrowwood, bush or vine honeysuckle (for hummingbirds), holly, firethorn (Pyracantha), elderberry and blackberry.

For large trees, oaks are probably the best. Black cherry and persimmon will provide food for birds and mammals. Mulberry is great for birds but is messy. Hackberry a tough, drought resistant tree is host for a variety of butterfly larvae. You may not be able to wait 15 years for these trees to become productive, but you may already have these trees present on your property and by adding shrubs and/or perennials you’ll have a wildlife area with little effort.

To attract butterflies consider butterfly bush, butterfly weed, cone flowers (purple and yellow), Liatris, honeysuckle, bee balm, or asters. Annuals such as sunflower, scarlet sage, marigold, and zinnias can be used. Goldfinches will eat the seeds from the heads of purple coneflowers and Liatris in the winter after butterflies are gone (another dual-purpose plant). Consider planting host plants for butterfly larvae (carrot, dill, asters, tomato, legumes).

You can create a wildlife area close to your house to be enjoyed year around, or consider that brushy wood lot, fencerow, field corner or unmowable rocky ravine. Ask yourself "What can I do to improve or attract wild life to this area?" Remember, you’re creating a wild life area, so eliminate your pesticide use in that area. Sometimes the most cluttered, overgrown (ugly in our eye) area is the best for wildlife.