With a desert habitat, birds, other critters will soon feel welcome

Just because you live in the middle of Tucson doesn't mean you can't enjoy the desert in your back yard.

As Peter Siminski of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum will tell you, nature is everywhere you look, even if you live in the middle of a city, as he did when he grew up in Toledo, Ohio. Get a piece of paper and start keeping track of all the animals you see around your house in the yard. You'll notice all kinds of different birds, lizards and bugs, which you can study with a magnifying glass.

Maybe you live in an apartment complex or somewhere else where you don't have a yard. You can still have a desert garden. Get a pot or a planter for your patio or windowsill and plant some wildflowers. A good place to get seeds is Native Seeds/SEARCH at 526 N. Fourth Ave., or a nursery or plant store. When the flowers bloom, critters will find their way to your desert.

If you have a yard and want to turn in into a desert habitat, the first step is to survey the grounds. You may already have some desert plants in your yard that attract butterflies, hummingbirds, lizards and other critters. If you don't, you can make a backyard desert habitat with a few simple steps. You don't need a huge yard or a house near the desert to do it. And when you're finished, you just might be able to get your yard designated as an official Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

Here are the basic steps the National Wildlife Federation says you'll want to follow for a backyard habitat:

Step 1: Look around.

Your yard might already have plants and features that provide food or habitat for animals. You may have some native plants that provide seeds and nectar, or even a bird feeder that provides food for animals. You might have a pond, pool or birdbath that provides water. And you might have a rock wall or a pile of wood or logs that provides habitat for lizards, bugs and other animals. Does your yard have a tree that is dead or dying? If it does, don't cut it down, because it will provide an ideal habitat for all sorts of insects and birds such as woodpeckers, owls and wrens.

Step 2: Provide the four basic elements.

To attract wildlife that will visit and maybe even make a home in your backyard desert, you need to provide food, water, cover and nurseries.

To provide food, add native plants such as cacti, trees and wildflowers that will provide foods such as seeds, nuts and nectar.

To provide water, you can take simple steps by supplying a water dish or birdbath, or take bigger steps by building a pond or even a circulating waterfall. You'll need to provide water year 'round, but nature can help you do this if you do a little water harvesting. This means doing things like capturing rain water from your roof to water plants or fill a pond, or building up berms, or mounds or ridges of dirt, so the rain collects in a spot instead of running out of your yard.

If you don't want to build a pond or don't have a birdbath, you can still have a great backyard desert, as long as you provide the small amount of water that native plants need to live. Wildflowers will grow every year that we get good winter rains. Pollinator gardens that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies can be made with plants that need little water, such as desert honeysuckle, lantana and chuparosa.

To provide cover, choose different kinds of plants. A clump of evergreen plants will provide cover all year round. You'll also want deciduous plants, or plants that lose their leaves, because they will provide a different kind of cover for animals during the summer. Last but not least, piles of rocks, wood or twigs will provide cover for bugs, snakes and lizards. But be very careful with piles, because there may be poisonous snakes in there - so observe from a safe distance, and never, ever, go poking around in them. Be sure to get the OK of your parents before you build such a pile, especially if you have brothers or sisters or pet dogs to keep safe.

For nurseries where animals can raise their young, you'll want trees or cacti that birds can make nests in. Trees and other plants can also provide nurseries for caterpillars that will become butterflies. Ponds can provide nurseries for toads, turtles and insects such as dragonflies. Quail have been known to nest in empty, overturned pots in a quiet corner of a yard. Cactus wrens will quickly turn a broken street lamp or other cozy spot into a nest.

Once you've finished your desert habitat, you'll have your own laboratory to study and enjoy some of the plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert. If you want to go a step further, you can have your back yard certified as an official Backyard Wildlife Habitat. Your habitat will have its own number and be entered into the National Register by the National Wildlife Federation, and they'll send you a certificate you can frame or even make into a sign. More importantly, you'll be part of a group of more than 26,000 people who share their yards with wildlife all across America.

For more information on how to create a Backyard Wildlife Habitat and get it certified, log onto the National Wildlife Federation's Web site at www.nwf.org/habitats/backyard/basics.cfm.

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