Loretta and Doo A Hare of a Tale

Michael Nolan Doo doo

A guest post by author Michael Nolan When the idea for the homestead first began to take shape I was blissfully unaware of the wildlife with which I shared the area.  Over the coming weeks as winter began to lose its hold on the landscape I would slowly come to meet the native residents. I [...]

Rabbits are Both Friend and Foe

Image by Larry D. Moore, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License.

  Rabbits. Most people have love/hate relationship with these large eared, furry animals. Yes, they’re oh so cute and gentle-looking, have beautiful big brown eyes and look like they could never do anything wrong. But turn your back and before you know it the rabbits are eating everything in your wildlife garden, especially leafy green [...]

Hibernation Time is Over

Black Bear posing nicely.  Photo by Mike Bender/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

  It’s springtime in the Rockies which means it’s time for the bears to come out and start looking for their first meal. After a long winter’s nap, the American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) are hungry and many times caring for new cubs, and they’ll be visiting my wildlife garden soon looking for something to eat. [...]

Gardening With Wildlife

Small sparrow in the wildlife garden

Gardening with wildlife I sat in an open window at dawn, looking over the chaparral garden at the brilliant moon, almost full, descending towards the horizon. A running scurry along the flat earth area in front of my greenhouse caught my eye. It was an LBB –a little brown bird, of which we have many [...]

Mother Nature’s Squirrel Feeder

This squirrel found his sweet treats at the end of the Rose cane.  If you closely, you can see the Vitamin Rich, orange Rose Hip

Do you ever wonder why wildlife choose to come visit your garden?  Yesterday while I was in my study area of the basement, I saw the branches of th Morden Centennial Shrub Rose (Rosa ‘Morden Centennial’ ) shaking and I thought maybe the Mule Deer were munching.  When I went over to the window, I saw a [...]

The Sierra Nevada Red Fox is Alive and Well…Without Us

MachoB

Once again I feel compelled to talk about the big wildlife garden outside of my personal one. In Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest this past August, a single female Sierra Nevada Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) was recorded by a remote camera. This is a very big deal considering that precious little is known about this geographically [...]

Beautiful Nocturnal Flying Squirrel

IMG_0253

I’m not often in the garden at night.  There is no question, because of this,  I miss out on a lot of the beautiful wildnightlife. Often I hear a hoot owl, but I have yet to see him.  I know the moths will come as the sun sets, setting off the night blooming flower’s sweet [...]

The Hills are Alive at my House…the Beneficial Mole!

Phyla nodiflora

I was getting ready to give my Irish setter a piece of my mind because there was digging at the fence….a no-no. It didn’t seem to be her usual “let’s bury the human” size hole, merely scratching along the surface. As I continued to walk along, I felt the earth move under my feet which [...]

Squirrelhaven

welcomesign11Oct10

Love them or hate them, or, as in my case, feel some of both, squirrels are the constant garden companions of many of us.  They dig in the lawn, they dig in containers, they dig up freshly installed plants in the borders, they dig up and eat the crocus bulbs (actually corms).  But they also [...]

Mule Deer don’t always have to Munch

My garden is full of plants that Mule Deer don't like to munch

Do you love to see deer but don’t want them to become daily dinner guests in the wildlife garden? One of the most frequent wildlife visitors we have in our yard are Mule Deer, sometimes more than a dozen at a time. Living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains means that we share our environment [...]

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