Wildlife Habitat Improvements on Small Properties

I sometimes have requests to make wildlife habitat improvements on small properties. Some are wooded tracts in a large woods with lots of subdivided tracts around them. Some are grown over abandoned small farms or even cultivated fields of corn and beans. I’d rather have a small overgrown farm to work with than a woodlot since it gives me a clean slate to work with.

You don’t need a large tract of land to make a big impact in wildlife habitat improvements. Although deer and other big game as well as turkeys roam over a large area, one can still make a place very attractive for them. Most of large tracts are made up of biological deserts in terms of game. With crop fields, wide open, poorly managed woods, they don’t hold much game except for small pockets where the animals spend most of their time. Creating one of the small pockets out of your particular tract can be very effective in attracting and increasing sightings of wildlife. Most of the management practices we do for game species also benefit many other animals, insects and birds. Creating early successional habitat for grouse and songbirds are also great for deer and turkeys among other animals.

Early successional habitat holds more wildlife in general that just about any other cover type. Usually thick cover with diverse species, it can provide nesting, feeding and hiding places for a wide variety of wildlife. Over grown fields or regenerating woods with a high stem count and plenty of fruit bearing plants and succulent forbs can support more wildlife that open woods.

The First Steps to Improve Wildlife Habitat

The first step is to make a Wildlife Habitat Improvement Plan. For the Plan you will need:

1. a satellite image showing the property and the surrounding properties
2. an idea of what animals you want to attract
3. an assessment of available habitat requirements for the species of concern
4. soils map showing where soils may be suitable for planting
5. an assessment of the vegetation that is currently on the property
6. an assessment of time, equipment and money that will be available to do the projects

A good satellite image is easy to come by these days for free. A couple of great paid services are OnX Hunt Maps and Garmin Basecamp, both of which can trasfer maps, drawings and measurements over to your smartphone or GPS unit. Its best to have something you can measure acres with so you know what you need when you buy seed, lime, fertilizer and seedlings. You can also measure with Google Earth Pro.

To begin, you may want to hire a professional to help you with your habitat plan. A Plan Writer who is experienced in this sort of thing can offer a lot of insight into what your primary focus species are and what they need. You may even be able to find a specialist. For instance, if grouse is your primary goal, the Ruffed Grouse Society has a staff biologist that may be able to help you with your plan. If you land is in the Private Land Cooperator Program, you have access to Game Commission help and expertise, supposedly. I don’t recommend this program.

For my services I charge a flat $300 per day plus mileage to provide you with a great map with lots of good ideas for your property and some instructions on how to get the projects done. I do this stuff all the time so it is second nature for me to go get what I need and get the projects completed. If you are a new landowner or just don’t have the time.

Wildlife Habitat Improvement Activities

Some folks think helping wildlife is about putting out a feeder or a salt block. But there is more to the year around needs of animals than some easy food or a bird house. Animals need food, water, shelter and a place to rear young. The basics of life whether you are a human or a bear.

A Plan will inventory the existing situation and compare it to the needs of the species of concern. Then lay out a map of what to put where to create a great habitat.

A great start is to assess the amount of invasive species infecting the property. Some old farms and mis-managed woods are full of foreign plants as well as native plants that can be very aggressive and foil your best laid plans by taking over the undergrowth. Many of these plants have no food or cover value for out native wildlife. Step one is to reduce and preferably eradicate them.

In a woodland setting, if there is continuous forest in the area, creating a opening can be a big improvement. Selling mature timber or just cutting down trees that are shading the forest floor can be a good practice. Again, make sure invasives are under control or they will explode in the understory and get out of control very quickly. In small areas that have a high deer population, you may need to put up a deer exclosure fence to keep deer out until the new growth can get started.

In an open field or old field setting, you may want to plan on creating soft edge with cutting and/or planting. Everyone likes a food plot, so you need a couple of plots with perennial forage and annual forage cover crop mixes. Building soil with cover crops is a great way to do your part to fight pollution and sequester lots of carbon if you’re into that. Building healthy soil on your land is great for a place to grow high quality food for yourself too.

Security cover and browse/nesting places for birds can be provided by planting native shrubs in appropriate microclimates. Switchgrass is a great choice but can be tricky to get started. Once established, it provides cover for many years. Same can be said for shrubs. I like dogwoods, vibernums, hazelnuts, crabapples, hybrid oaks, apples, persimmons pears. You can plant softwood trees for thermal and escape cover.

A good example of this can be found in my youtube video here: https://youtu.be/xLWcL5ww9wU

In this example, I have a large field to work with next to a brushy wooded river bottom with lots of deer activity. The Landowner would like to attract waterfowl, deer and other wildlife to the area for the visitors to his campground. There is a wet area that you can see as a sort of dicoloration in the middle. This would be a great place to put a small pond, them plant duck potato and wild grains around it with a layer of red osier dogwood then switchgrass. This would become a magnet for all kinds of birds, ducks, deer and small critters.

Next, we will take out the golden rod and grass that deer don’t use and replace them with high quality forage. We limed the soil and will add the necessary fertilizer to the field. This field can feed all sorts of birds, deer, rabbits, etc and provide cover for them. Switchgrass and some winter forage will be provided to get deer through the long northern winter. Water is not a limiting factor here so we don’t have to provide it.

Water Holes

Where water is a limiting factor, even in high rainfall regions, we should provide a place near to cover where animals can water. A water hole on a hot dry day in the summer is a great draw. As you can see where we dug a water hole in a dry creek near heavy brush cover, deer frequent the spot during daylight hours, making a great place to hunt or place a camera. Deer need water later in the season when its hot and there is less water in the vegetation they eat.

Food, water and security cover. Bedding cover, roosting trees, high stem count early successional forest. These necessary habitat components can be created when one or more are missing from the landscape. Even on a small property, all of them can be included in your project plans.

Paying for Habitat Improvements

Many projects I work on require quite a lot of money for contractors, seed, soil amendments, etc. A project that includes tree planting and deer fencing or with herbicide applications can run into thousands of dollars. To pay for the projects, I often sell some timber from the property or trade trees for dozer work. Some loggers have the equipment to install food plots.

Another source of funding is EQIP, the environmental quality improvement program adminsitered by the NRCS. You may want to contact the office in your county to see if there is some funding available for your projects. My advice is to use government funding as a last resort as they can be very difficult to work with.

Wildlife Habitat Improvements on Small Tracts are sometimes easier to do that large tracts because your efforts are concentrated on small zones within your land and you dont get too spread out. Even on a large tract, the habitat improvements are focused on small areas anyway and much of the large tract remains poor quality habitat. Small tracts are easier to buy and own and, in a good area, can produce lots of game and if done well will become a home to a big buck every year and have turkeys and small game on them.

Even if you are not in to hunting, there is plenty of enjoyment to be found in bird watching and seeing many species of wildlife on your ownership. Most land ownerships are less than 50 acres so the opportunities to do a lot of good are numerous.