Essays

Wild On The Prairie: Habitats

A home-made ecosystem - the windbreak
January 16, 2000

Do you hear the song of the pines when you step out of your door? You know the one, the soft whistle of air swirling between the needles: It is why many people of West Texas go to the mountains at Cloudcroft during the summer. The sound alone can cool a person. And pines give such wonderful shade, deep, dark pools that draw birds from afar to rest during the heat of summer afternoons. With older trees, a pine duff is laid underneath the spreading branches a soft umber blanket of cast needles to mulch bulbs and shade flowers. Pines create their own ecosystems, their own landscapes, and can create outdoor living spaces that are most unusual to the southern Llano Estacado.

Annually, the Midland Soil and Water Conservation District offers for sale tree seedlings grown by the Texas Forest Service. Over the last twenty years, 100,000+ seedlings have been sold to members of the general public. Almost every neighborhood in rural Midland County has several windbreaks that originated from this program. Some folks have created straight-line windbreaks, while others have planted one-and two-acre "forests", and others have created groves of trees for their houses or barns or shops to nestle beneath.

Wildlife-attracting shrubs, when planted in clumps near a grouping of evergreens, increase the diversity of birds that visit a rural landscape. With the addition of a small water feature, a landowner recreates a desert water hole. Birds will be ecstatic over such plantings, as will such amusing visitors as raccoons and foxes.

Many rural residents moved to the country in order to be more involved and connected with the natural world. Planning to attract wildlife adds a deeper hue to the tapestry of country living. A person begins to look forward to the visit of the neighborhood fox for example, admiring its intelligence, curiosity, and beauty. A visiting wild creature is not a pet, but its visits are an indication that it has accepted your presence in the natural world. Deep satisfaction can be found in providing cover, food, and water for the non-human residents of the neighborhood.

Four winged Saltbush and Aromatic Sumac thrive on just a few waterings a year. Saltbush is native to Midland County. Chile ristra craftspeople love to ornament their creations with its golden seed heads and strange fuzzy white galls that appear in th fall. Quail often spend summer afternoons dustbathing under saltbushes, knowing that no predator can easily approach them through the tangle of branches. Winter sparrows such as the White-crowned Sparrows spend frigid nights within the bramble of the branches, coming to the top of the bush each morning to sing the sun up over the horizon.

Aromatic Sumac are multi-trunked shrubs that can reach eight feet high and across. The lobed leaves turn yellow and red in the fall. Sumacs will fill out a thicket making it dense and secretive, which is just what a creature wants. Sand Plum produces small tart plums in late May after a showy late March flowering. Certain places on a property should be totally the realm of wildlife. Hackberries, Burr Oak, and Russian Olive can be planted around a pond, and within a few years that pond will remind the homeowner of a ranch tank in a favorite deer pasture in the Hill Country. Every rural resident should spend the time, money, and effort to create windbreaks and wildlife thickets. It enriches the country life beyond compare.