Creating native habitat on YOUR land and green strip tips and experiences

[Bluetongue1]

Your existing habitat sounds great. While understorey plants can attract insects and other invertebrates, especially when in flower, a decent layer of decomposing leaf litter is a mini-ecosystem in itself. There are lots of invertebrate that feed on leaf litter and lots of other invertebrates that feed on them. So a healthy layer of litter can provide shelter and an on-going food source for reptiles and frogs. It is the preferred habitat of a lot of species of burrowing skinks and provides good protection for many smaller skinks when foraging. I reckon it helps if you keep the litter at least a little bit moist underneath - so that it can continue to decompose. Snail pellets are a big ?No No?. Lots of litter feeders. other than slugs and snails, will also eat these poison baits.

Last year I had to temporarily rake up the litter under my mango tree, in order to get rid of some grass that had grown into it. In about six square metres of litter I found half a dozen good sized Hemiergis initialis, the Southwestern Earless Skink. A population density of one lizard per square metre - I was quite stoked. Around the yard there are also breeding populations of Snake-eyed Lizards (Cryptoblepharus buchananii), Dwarf Skinks (Menetia greyii) and Marbled Geckoes (Christinus marmoratus). Not too bad for a modern house smack bang in the middle of suburbia.


Large boulders are more about looks than creating habitat I reckon. A pile of smaller rocks can provide lots of nooks and crannies for shelter and allows for more protected basking. The same is true for wood piles, especially if they contain some hollow logs or branches. Rock and wood piles also provide good places for invertebrates (food for vertebrates) to live.

As a kid I had several Cunningham Skinks escape via a wooden framed wire door on the top of their backyard cage. I didn?t realise the door could be forced slightly open at the corners from inside the cage. The Cunninghams apparently had no trouble climbing the wooden inside frame to reach the door and force their way out. I did wonder at the time why, all of a sudden, they seemed less keen to come out of hiding and sun themselves. Although originally from granite rock outcrops (near Cowra), the escaped skinks set up house in next door?s pile of old lumber at the back of their garage shed. As they looked at home there, and I could still enjoy viewing them, I decided to leave them be. They were still going strong, with adults and babies present, over 20 years later.

So yeah, a rock and/or wood pile is definitely worth considering.

It's great to see a local council interested in and actually doing something to help native wildlife

Blue

 

[kingofnobbys]

Yep, leaf litter under my shrubs is never disturbed by me and I often hear little critters ( will be little brown skinks and water skinks and the occasional bluetongue) fossicing about in it when I sit quietly on the front patio.

I also often see little skinks heads peaking out and watching me (in the hope I'll toss a mealworm to them - which I regularly do and they grab and dash off with) from amongst the twig and bark pile.

The little skinks love the overflow / watering hole in the bottom of my selfwatering posts that I'm trying to grow berry plants and fruit plants in, I often see then sunning near the pots and if anything startles them they dash straight into the nearest water o/flow hole and not long afterwards you can seen a little head peaking out.

My garden is completely poison free - I tolerate the weeds , the occasional bindiei , and a few ants and slugs and snails.

I collect some of the gumtree twigs and leaf litter and add this to the cocopeat for my BTs and EWS's bedding , if a few bugs come with it, that's fine. My pet EWS loves flicking over the new dry leafs looking for tasty little morsals when her bedding has changed. (perhaps she smells other lizards on it too , she get's very excited and headnods too).