Pale-headed rosella inspecting a TalkingNature nest box (TalkingNature CC SH-BY)
Everyone needs a place to live. In our ever expanding cities, people are always finding new places to live but often at someone else’s expense. It’s a competition for space and often it’s the native animals, the frogs, birds and mammals that lose the competition. They lose their natural habitats. But can we keep nature and wildlife around us somehow, can we offset this habitat loss?
Have a think about where you live. What did your neighbourhood look like 10, 50, or 100 years ago?
If you live on the edge of an expanding city or town, like many people do, it’s likely that there was a lot more natural forest, grassland, scrub and bush around then than there is today. If you get a chance, head out to a new residential development as it’s being developed. You’ll see the changes first hand.
Urbanisation is a competition for space: cities vs nature. But the people living here can help nature out.
It’s a reality – if people want to build towns, shopping centres and houses then they need space to build. Something’s gotta give.
Not many of us like living in a lifeless concrete jungle though. So as our urbanised centres grow, can we keep nature around us somehow? To a certain extent you can and you can do it by improving the liveability of the ‘natural’ habitats around you.
In Australia and elsewhere there are many programs that encourage landowners to improve local habitats for wildlife. For example there’s the Land for Wildlife program and various nature refuge programs. In some places you may be lucky enough to live near a nature reserve for example, Mangatautri or the Cape Otway Conservation area, where you can volunteer to help improve local habitats.
But as we all know, good things start at home. You can make a difference by enhancing the wildlife habitats on your own property. TalkingNature is going to give you some tips on how you can add some artificial habitats to your property that can be used by native wildlife in your garden.
Mangroves, Moreton Bay figs and eucalypts have made way for a modern Brisbane city.
Native animals evolved with native plants and chances are there are many ecological relationships between them. For example, check out the interdependence of the Richmond Birdwing butterfly and a native vine. So, increasing the abundance and diversity of native plants on your property is a great first step towards improving natural habitat quality.
You can also supplement the habitat with artificial ‘homes’ such as nest boxes for birds and arboreal mammals, frog ponds for…dare I say it…frogs, and rock gardens for native reptiles like this land mullet!
The Land Mullet (Egernia major), is one of the largest members of the skink family
You might think that improving wildlife habitats on your property won’t make a difference when you think about the whole suburb or town. The thing is, there are lots of people throughout the suburbs who are improving and restoring wildlife habitats on their properties. Together these properties are like islands in a sea of urban sprawl. They’re visited by birds, mammals and other animals and used as refuges and ‘homes’ as the animals roam the neighbourhood.
A mangrove lined riverbank. What many rivers in subtropical Queensland might have looked like before urbanisation
So making changes at your place does make a difference because it adds to the network of habitats, provides additional refuges and food sources and shortens the corridors between the islands of wildlife habitat in your suburb.
Have a look around your place, I’m sure you’ll be able to see ways you can enhance the habitat so that you can turn the typical grassy back yard into a diverse wildlife refuge and enjoy your local nature.
Providing habitat for native plants and animals must of course, one of our critical objectives. I am happy say that almost all the plants I have planted in my garden are natives (except say parsely and lemon), and most of those are local species – we do seem to be getting more native animals, birds in particular. Thanks for these links I am especially interested in nesting boxes and frog ponds.
Interestingly, after doing a lot of vegetation mapping on the NSW East Coast I am of the opinion that the amount of native forest in that region at least, has been increasing over the last few decades. Seems there was a lot of clearing of forest in the first half of the 20th century, but in the second half of the century significant proportions of that appear to have regrown.
Thanks for the frogs mention. People can help save the frogs by telling their local teachers about the Build A Frog Pond Contest:
http://savethefrogs.com
Another visit today from the Rosellas mid morning, one on the bird of paradise flowers, the other still checking on the accommodation holding onto the nest box and looking through the hole!
Hi Murray,
Great to hear you’re planting the natives. Interesting comments as well about the increasing amount of forest. Hope you find those links useful.
Cheers
Ruth
I agree with Murray about the increase in native forests. Having been involved with the Big Scrub Rainforest Landcare Group, I’ve seen aerial photos of properties and larger areas taken decades ago compared with ones taken more recently, and the difference is astounding – many more trees now. I heard an old-time farmer lamenting that all his hard work of clearing had gone for naught. They thought it was the right thing to do back then.
Thanks Joy, it’s good to hear that the forests are on the way back. We are about to plant a couple of Tallowoods on our property. I like your blog .
Excellent post, even though many habitats are bouncing back, I think it is very important to help them along by enhancing the habitat however we can. This is a win-win for all living creatures.
I live in a suburban area near Newcastle, NSW and we are lucky to be just a few kilometres away from the stunning Awabakal bush and Glenrock nature reserve. I’m happy to be living in a house in which we have a large, old tree with plenty of perch branches frequently used by larger birds inc. the occasional frogmouth, and smaller bushy natives frequented by rosellas. Great to hear that our forests are making a comeback!
I was not able to find a ‘contact’ link on this website, but I was wondering whether you’d consider looking at a short article I’ve been writing for a university course, Applied Environmental Science. Our task was a short article in non-scientific terms, on an environmental topic of our own choosing. Bonus marks are awarded to those who submit to a print or online publication. My short article is a review on the powerful owl, an iconic species local to my area.
If you’d be interested in this I’d love to hear from you by email! c3075910@uon.edu.au
cheers
Hayley Averell
This is a very important topic, what with the seven billionth person in the world being born this year. More room for people means less room for nature, but you have given some good tips and links to make this less of a mark on nature.
I lived in Alaska for two decades, and being surrounded by all that nature was such a gift.
It’s fantastic that Australia and other countries have programs that encourage home owners to improve local habitats for wildlife. I’m sure these programs cost very little yet provide livable space for the wildlife and better quality of life for the human inhabitants.