Sometimes you make this whole creating a habitat thing up and wing it. Often we try to mimic nature where it may not exist and spend quite a bit of time experimenting. While there are plenty of great ideas out there, it becomes a matter of what wildlife in your area needs, what you can physically add and what you can realistically maintain. A water feature isn’t something I can accomplish and it frustrates me no end on many levels. I try to adapt and offer a few of the benefits of a water feature without the actual water feature. Mud is one of them.
Anyone who has looked into gardening for wildlife will have heard about the benefits of providing mud in a habitat. Insects such as mason bees need it for their homes, butterflies will drink and ‘puddle’ from it and some birds, including my beloved Eastern Phoebe, use mud to build nests. Birds and insects that use mud to build homes often have other methods of producing it through dirt and spit, but anyone with water nearby has seen creatures utilizing moist ground around a shore. Mud is an asset in a habitat. (Now the bird nest issue concerns me a bit as I feel like a good rain and the babies are going to fall out as their floor dissolves but I’m going to trust that the birds know what they are doing).
Anyhow, I digress. I live in Georgia where it is hot for a good part of the year. Alright a big chunk of the year, and really hot. Mud isn’t easy to come by – this s a state with no natural lakes after all. We have a decent river but all in all it’s a dry state. One habitat feature I have unsuccessfully attempted to include has been a mud bath but have found it too unrealistic to maintain. Water evaporates within hours. I have even attempted to install bird bath misters and drippers over wide pans of dirt to keep it moist but the hose issues again, were unrealistic. While I do have bird baths, insects tend not to share small spaces with birds that will eat them. Plus it is mud I want, not water.
Then the other day I was watering plants. Some water got on an area of open dirt and instantly four swallowtail butterflies were on it. As a result I have decided to try again with mud since obviously wildlife would use a ‘puddle’ if they are on a spill so quickly. I have often watched butterflies landing on any wet spot on the ground.
Having tried several methods, I am going simple this time by filling up an unused bird bath with clay, organic matter and water. Nothing fancy or over-thought. This is placed near other water bird baths so when I clean them I can also add water to the mud bath. Hopefully doing that will make it a low maintenance feature. Next week is forecast in the upper 80′s to lower 90s with no rain which will quickly allow me to discover if wildlife has a use for my experimental mud bath.
When it comes to wildlife gardening, watch your backyard. Get silly ideas and try new things. Some will work and others will be ignored, but it will be interesting. Wildlife can be adaptable and resourceful so you never know what they will utilize in their efforts to survive.
Please let us know in the comments know about your experiments in a habitat, successful or total flops. Don’t be shy – we’ve all done some crazy stuff to attract wildlife. I know this as I am still obsessively trying to build the perfect opossum house and already had one neighbor ask what the bowl of mud is doing in my backyard.
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About Karyl Seppala
The lazy farmer in me allows muddy areas in the paddocks to remain – the swallowtail butterflies thank me for their puddling opps! It pays not to be too obsessive as a habitat farmer!
Oh, when I build low rock walls for raised beds, I always leave some nooks and crannies for the snakes. Hopefully my construction technique (based on unsound science) won’t backfire and come crashing down on them literally…but they seem to like their habitat…and they are welcome to dine on anything considering eating my veggie plants
Ellen Sousa recently posted..Groundcovers for Moist Shade
Anywhere I put a rock I get lizards and snakes. I have found the lizards eat far more bugs than I realized, so I am hoping mine are happy and breed, and like you, eat anything considering munching on my vegetables.
Karyl Seppala recently posted..Extreme Nerd
Oh what a great idea for butterflies.. I have a section of stone dust under my bird feeder which gets re-filled several times a day during the summer and the butterflies go there often..but I really love your idea…Michelle
Rambling Woods recently posted..Nature Notes (#164)~Pollinators are often keystone species, meaning that they are critical to an ecosystem. The work of pollinators ensures full harvests of crops and contributes to healthy plants everywhere.
My experiment hasn’t had great success with butterflies so far. I may need to add sand or stone dust, but here it evaporates immediately. I’ll keep trying. The finches love it though!
great idea providing mud…I will have to be more aware of this in my garden…the vegetation around my veg garden is a fav spot for the frogs during the day…I try not to clean up too much since the critters enjoy the foliage.
Donna Donabella recently posted..A Special Garden Book Review
Mud is important for pollinators too. Good idea to let gardeners know. I watched a Checkerspot butterfly visit a patch of mud in my So Cal yard yesterday. Have fun with your new mud endeavors!
Kathy @nativegardener recently posted..California’s White Sage of the Chaparral
Everything on my balcony is an experiment! Even finding which plants will grow in these conditions is challenging. I’ve tried different water supplies, but they dry out very quickly in the sun. Right now I’ve got a bowl filled with rocks which I fill when I water. I’ve also made an insect hotel, but some of the compartments didn’t work so well because the wind blew out the fillers. The sweetgum fruit/seeds worked wonderfully, the pine needles, not so much, they blew out with the first wind. Always trial and error.
Kelly Brenner recently posted..On Being Misunderstood:: House Centipede
I just came across your lovely post via Twitter. I’m in NW England, and we’re having one of the wettest summers in history. I would love to have a bit of dry heat!
What I’ve observed here with the birdbaths (ceramic glazed plant saucers on the patio under the shrub border) is the birds also like clean water, and for the birdbath to be kept more than half full.
Can you create a little shady area under a couple of layers of planting where the water wouldn’t evaporate so quickly, and maybe the moisture that does evaporate might circulate under the leaves? I seem to remember Toby Hemenway describes something like this in a garden in Arizona in his book Gaia’s Garden.
What a fun idea! I know what you mean about mud being somewhat unrealistic in the southeast…at least here during dry season, right now is a different story…they can bask on the sides of the well-filled culvert. Now, an opposum house, that’s a new one for me. I need to find out the benefits of having one of those around.
I guess my most interesting addition is when the wheelbarrow fills with water, in order to keep any potential mosquitos in check, I scoop some water with mosquito fish from the pond. Last year when I did that I got an array of other wildlife: pollywogs, dragonfly larvae and I learned about water tigers (thank you Ursula!) from watching the nymphs. It was a fascinating experimental laboratory. I’ll probably do the same this year.
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I had forgotten about t he mud and butterflies. Once when we were in the South and going on a rafting trip, we finally got out of the jeep to get into the raft. The area was very muddy, but there were swarms of small blue butterflies fluttering around my feet and ankles. Such a lovely memory.