Backyard Wildlife Habitat Mentor Program Volunteers Share Skills

Cheryl Lovato Niles holds a master’s degree in environmental science from UC Berkeley. She is currently a full-time mom, ocassional freelance writer and Backyard Habitat Mentor.

Volunteers for Bellingham’s Backyard Wildlife Habitat Mentor program share their knowledge and enthusiasm for wildlife-friendly gardening with city and county residents all year long.

As Whatcom County residents, we are well aware of the natural beauty all around us. We enjoy not only a rich natural environment, but also an exceptional network of trails from which to enjoy it. With the help of the Bellingham Backyard Habitat Mentor program, residents are discovering that they can bring the natural beauty they cherish closer to home—to their own personal landscapes. The program provides free education and mentoring for those who’d like to create their own beautiful and lively backyard wildlife sanctuary.

Imagine a garden animated by butterflies and beneficial insects, songbirds busy at their nests, tadpoles slowly changing to frogs in a backyard pool, all surrounded by lovely low-maintenance plants that make environmentally-friendly gardening easy. While it may sound dreamy, it’s also a realistic gardening goal. And it’s a goal that organizations like the National Wildlife Federation, the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary program and the Bellingham Backyard Habitat Mentors support and encourage.

The program teaches landowners how to create an environment, large or small, that feels like home to wildlife. Wild creatures need water, food, shelter and a place to rear their young. They like structural diversity: tree canopy, shrubs, knee-high plants and groundcovers. And they thrive in an environment that provides food such as insects, berries, flowers and seeds all year long. While the basics are simple, the opportunities for refinement and creative tailoring are almost limitless.

In addition to replacing some of the natural habitat that’s been lost to our growing cities and towns, landscaping for wildlife just naturally brings people to sustainable gardening practices, creating a double payoff for the environment. When you’re tending a butterfly garden, you’re leaving the pesticides in the shed because the point, after all, is to feed the caterpillars. When your goal is to attract wildlife, you’re naturally drawn to our native plants—wildlife magnets that not only survive, but thrive, without lots of fertilizers or supplemental water. When you’re replacing some or all of the lawn with wildlife sustaining trees and shrubs, water conservation comes more easily.

For veteran Backyard Wildlife Habitat Mentor David Dobbs, the environmental ethic is a strong motivator, but certainly not the only reason he volunteers his time. A landscaper by trade, David is drawn also to the tranquility and creativity gardeners bring to their personal wildlife sanctuaries. The air is cleaner, the noise of traffic fades and it’s fun to watch the birds drawn to the backyard habitat. The good-citizen nature of this neighbor-to-neighbor service whose mission is to improve the natural environment while beautifying the human landscape is also very appealing to David, a long-time supporter of civic and neighborhood efforts.

For Kendra Bradford, a trained plant ecologist, volunteer mentor and also program staff, backyard habitat mentoring combines her love of environmental education, her aesthetic sensibilities and her pragmatic nature. “Why should we have to drive to enjoy the natural beauty that drew us to the Northwest, when we could enjoy it at home?” she says. She believes that it’s often a simple lack of knowledge that keeps people gardening in the familiar lawn and rose-bush style and that many people would love wildlife-friendly gardening—if only they knew where to start.

Kendra’s hope is that the mentor program overcomes that initial barrier and that, once folks get started, they’ll be as hooked as she is. While her love of plants is a long standing preoccupation, the backyard habitat program has inspired her to put up hummingbird feeders and birdbaths. Now she and her family enjoy learning about the birds who were already in residence, but previously difficult to see.

For myself, I love ecology and I love learning about natural history and native plants, animals and insects. The backyard habitat mentor program gives me a wonderful format to meet people with similar interests, to learn from other knowledgeable mentors, and to share that information with people who can hardly believe that such a neat service is available to them for free! If you’d like a trained mentor to come to your yard bearing a resource box full of reference materials and tip sheets, plus a lot of creativity and enthusiasm for wildlife gardening, contact Rae Edwards, at 676-6801 ext 24 or parksvolunteer@cob.org. §