All wildlife requires food, water and shelter to survive. This publication discusses providing those necessities in a backyard environment. Detailed information is given on how to attract birds, hummingbirds, butterflies, bats, snakes, lizards, toads and frogs. Information is also provided on controlling deer, rodents, and other animals that are considered pests. Management tips are given for making your backyard the best habitat possible including an example and how to create a trail.
Conservation buffers include filter strips, riparian buffers, grass waterways, and field borders. These practices used in conjunction with land management for timber and agriculture can enhance wildlife habitat, provide erosion control, and reduce herbicide runoff. This publication discusses the different types of conservation buffers, the environmental benefits, and the economic benefit to farmers.
Research performed at Mississippi State University the use of agricultural field border management practices and the impact on grassland bird species. "Within intensive agricultural landscapes, field borders provide important idle herbaceous cover for grassland and early successional birds. Field borders may provide nesting, foraging, roosting, loafing, and escape cover. During winter, field borders may provide important habitat in southern agricultural systems where most short distance migrants overwinter. Field borders provide important habitat for many grassland birds due to their greater abundance of food (weed seeds) and more complex vegetation structure compared to non-bordered field margins.
This publication defines native warm season grasses, lists examples of the types of warm season grasses and provides labeled drawings of the types. It describes the benefits of restoring native grasses and how to do so. Information is provided on keeping different non-native grass species under control. Information is also given on choosing and planting grass species in a way that restores ecosystems and is advantageous to wildlife or creates livestock forage. Use of periodic disturbances is also covered along with contact information for organizations that assist with management of warm season grasses.
This guide provides information on food plots and habitat management practices including disking, mowing and prescribed burning. The importance of openings is also discussed. A combination of supplemental forages in food planting is often necessary, as well as testing soil quality, fertilizing and liming. The location, size and shape of food plots as well as how to prepare them and which plants to use is included. An extensive guide on planting materials is given.
Those enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program can participate in mid-contract management activities to improve wildlife habitat that are cost-shared. In grasslands, these practices include prescribed fire, light strip-disking, interseeding legumes in introduced grass stands, and herbicidal control of invasive vegetation. In forests, these practices include prescribed fire or light disking, herbicidal control of invasive woody vegetation in pine stands, and herbicidal control of invasive exotic vegetation in pine and hardwood stands. This publication covers management techniques that are cost-shared through CRP in detail.
Pine forests can be managed to provide wildlife habitat using a variety of techniques, some of which can improve timber stand quality. Established stands can be managed with thinning, prescribed fire or disking, and even herbicide control of hardwoods which can provide food and cover for quail and grassland species, deer, rabbits, turkey and other wildlife. Regenerating stands can be managed to provide weeds, legumes, and grasses that benefit quail and other early successional wildlife species. Even former agricultural fields can be managed for grassland habitat in conjunction with pine production to include wildlife habitat.
CP33 field borders or habitat buffers are designed to benefit quail and other grassland bird populations. A research program was initiated in 2006 to study the effects of CP33 native grass habitat buffers on bird populations in Mississippi. The results of this study are presented in this report.
