Give Wildlife a Brake!

Where I live I get a discount on my county taxes for helping birds, deer, and other wildlife by feeding them, providing water, and even shelter.

This is how I give wildlife a brake.

I have an abundance of deer, rabbits, raccoons, turkeys, and other wildlife.  We have lots of songbirds and butterflies.

We have a lot of the same birds that most of you are familiar with, like cardinals, bluejays, hummingbirds, mourning doves, and robins.  We have many colorful songbirds and other colorful birds that probably migrate here.

Black Capped Vireo



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My wildflower garden and a kitchen garden attracts a lot of butterflies and hummingbirds.

This year we have really enjoyed watching the migratory birds as they stop by for water and birdseed.

On my property, I have lots of brush piles as that is part of our wildlife management. These make lovely homes for various creatures.

Rock piles provide shelter for a wildlife habitat



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Brush piles provide shelter for winter birds and other small creatures



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Ponds, tanks, and other ways that can provide water for wildlife



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Today is the first day of Give Wildlife a Brake Week - November 1-7, 2020

(By the way, I did not misspell Brake.  I looked at several holiday websites and that is how it is spelled)

What do you do to give wildlife a break?

I like the "brake" pun. Our family farm's fields are in a government program that pays to keep them fallow in order to provide natural habitat and to protect grain prices. I like it. I hope the program continues for a long time. The last time dad had it reinstated, it payed more than row cropping for the quality of ground it is!

Thank you for this post Anne!  Reading that the population of wild vertebrates is down 70% in the last 50 years is super terrifying to me.  We need to be all out fighting this decline and helping all our co-inhabitants recover....the kind of thing permaculture is amazing at!

OT: I just want to share! I went to the mailbox today.

It is a 7-mile trip on a rocky caliche road so I go slow.  On the way back I saw movement in the bushes so I slowed down.

This big buck deer with a hugh rack stepped out of the bushes.  I was at the top of a hill. He ran down the hill and jumped the high fence.

Deer are just such amazing creatures.