A small shallow water dish provides water for drinking and bathing. Placed on the ground, this simple bird bath also provides water for mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Small ponds, easily constructed in most home landscapes, provide an aquatic home for dragonflies, fish, newts, frogs, and other aquatic life. A thermostatically controlled bird bath heater provides water during subfreezing weather when the need for water is critical. A number of evergreen trees and shrubs provide year-round protective cover from weather and predators.
Deciduous shrubs offer effective summer cover for nesting and escaping predators.
Red-twig dogwood, bayberry, viburnums, and cotoneasters are good shrubs for massing in your yard. Rock, log, and mulch piles offer effective cover. Small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and a great variety of insects and other small animals find homes in these structures. Evergreens, deciduous trees, and shrubs provide additional nesting areas for birds. Rabbits, shrews, mice, snakes, and salamanders lay their eggs or raise young under boughs of plants as well as in the rock, log, or mulch piles.