Interested in having a wildlife habitat in your backyard next spring? The time to think about doing that is now in winter.
If your birdbaths don’t attract birds (or like one of mine that only attracted mosquito larvae for one season), consider Scott Edward’s suggestions in the book “Creating a Bird-Friendly Backyard Habitat” to create a bird pond. .
All birds need water. It’s one of those staples that Texas Wildscapes and the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Habitat say the creatures need.
I’m going to tell you what Scott says about bird ponds, and then we’ll have to break it down in terms of saving water, a necessity, and other considerations.
First off, Scott said that as birding and backyard bird habitats have become popular, so has the idea of creating moving water in a person’s garden. This depends on how much work the person is willing to do. Uh-oh, did I hear the word “work”?
How
A standard bird pond requires a shallow hole with some kind of waterproof liner. Size can vary, but the average is three feet by five feet. Most ponds have a waterfall or some other feature that requires a pump to keep the water moving. So you need to put this near a power outlet.
Choose a level area in your garden and mark the shape and location of the pond with a few stakes. Start digging. Your pond should be dug deep in the middle and shallow around the edges so the birds can gradually wade to the depth they want. Remember that most birds only want to get in the water up to an inch and a half deep.
You will need the pond to be deeper in the center for your recycle pump. Rocks can create suitable depths for birds in various areas and can also be used to camouflage the bomb. Also, many places that are not part of a coastal plain naturally have rocks in the water. I’m not kidding.
Small rocks can also act as a filtration system that keeps larger debris away from the pump so it doesn’t clog.
An important note from Scott:
Garden ponds require a lot of maintenance. Ponds and pumps require regular cleaning of mud, leaves, twigs, pebbles and bird droppings. To clean the pump, you can expect to get wet and dirty. If this puts you off, go back to last week’s discussion of birdbaths, sprinklers and drippers.
A pond is not the same as a pool. You can add levels and waterfalls to it. Your pond can be anything from a puddle with a pump to a miniature river flowing into a small lake. But remember that birds don’t like whitewater rapids, even if they are attracted to the sounds of moving water. A nice shallow meandering stream that empties into a small shallow pond is a good goal.
Do you want to be more elegant?
How about adding a sprinkler or dripper to keep the pond full and fresh, as well as attract more birds? Position the sprayer so that it sprays surrounding foliage to mist the leaves and drip into the pond basin. This will keep the pond full, catering to those birds that prefer a leaf bath rather than a dip.
New additions to the self-dug pond include above-ground ponds, pre-made plastic ponds that provide enough water to recirculate without being too deep for birds to use. Place the “pond” in the ground, fill it up, plug it in, and you’re ready to go. Native plants will grow around the pond and give it a natural look. You can also add sprayers and drippers and some small, flat rocks for smaller birds.
Some of these new ponds reproduce tree stumps or rocks, while weighing much less than the real thing. There are also ground-level birdbaths, basically prefabricated ponds that have built-in drippers or include a very low-flow waterfall.
So what do you do with the slime?
Algae growth, says Scott, is one of the main drawbacks of a bird pond. However, floating plants or bog plants, which grow with their roots underwater, actually inhibit algae growth. Nurseries should carry these types of plants. Plants not only inhibit algae, but also make your pond look more natural. Make sure you get plants that grow in our area.
Scott doesn’t talk about how much water would fit in such a pond, nor does he mention the cost of electricity. He mentioned that a sprinkler, with the needle valve fully open, can use about three gallons of water per hour. If you close the valve a bit, you can get it down to a gallon per hour.
When he mentioned misters in his birdbath section, he said you only turn them on when you want to watch the birds. I guess leaving it on slowly for an hour in the morning and an hour at night might be enough to keep the pond full of fresh water, excite birds that like to take trickle baths, and give the other birds a nice pond for the whole day. But you must take into account the use of water.
To stall or not to stall
Personally, I think I’ll stick to my birdbath. Digging, getting wet and dirty more than when I water the grass, dealing with algae, the cost of keeping the pond watered and the use of electricity turns me off. But you can decide to try one. Let me know how it turns out and I’ll share it with the other In Our Own Backyard readers.
And if you are interested in water gardens, I will tell you about them in another article.