When you click on one of the two Hummingbird links to the right, you will see a beautiful picture of the bird. If you love Hummingbirds as much as I do, you can find a great picture of Hummingbirds.

Contacts between lawns and shrubbery and the shrubs and trees provide a variety of height and cover.  It is in these contact zones where the most wildlife activity occurs.  

Having a water feature helps bring in a huge number of different creatures.  There were quail throughout our neighborhood but none in our yard until I put in a water feature.  Then a small covey of quail took up residence under our berry bushes.  That covey now has split into several groups.  

I put up bird houses, bat houses and mason bee houses.  The first year a few birds tried out the birdhouses.  Each year there have been more kinds of birds as well as more of each kind.  I have not been tagging them but expect that the young are returning as well as their parents.  I keep putting up more birdhouses to keep up with the population boom.  It is much more fun to watch Violet Green Swallows and our local Titmouse parents eating the mosquitoes than swatting them myself.

I like to put in plants that will attract the local butterflies.  A butterfly garden can make for a scene of "floating flowers".  Even if some of the plants are bruised a bit in the process.

I am very careful about pesticides.  I don't spray at all.  And where they are required I put the poison in bait stations that can keep the toxins away from unintended targets such as my kids, dogs, cat, chickens, goats and pigs.  I always use the least toxic means available.  For the most part waiting a bit will allow nature to solve the problem.  The major exceptions for me have been rodents and ants.

One of the greatest indicators of the health of a garden is the spiders.  Because they eat other insects the toxins can be concentrated in their bodies.

Birds

Allen's Hummingbird

Anna's Hummingbird

Blue Heron

California Quail

Oak Titmouse

Western Bluebird

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Bees

Honeybees * Apis mellifera

Mason Bees

Tarantula Hawk

California Butterfly List

Anise Swallowtail * Papilio zelicaon

California Dogface * Zerene eurydice

California Sister Butterfly * Adelpha bredowii

Common Buckeye * Junonia coenia

Fiery Skipper * Hylephila phyleus

Gulf Fritillary * Agraulis vanillae

Lorquin's Admiral * Basilarchia lorquini

Marine Blue * Leptotes marina

Monarch Butterfly * Danaus plexippus, (Butterfly, Caterpillar and egg)

Monarch Egg

Monarch on Milkweed

Painted Lady * Vanessa cardui

Pale Tiger Swallowtail * Papilio eurymedon

Red Admiral * Vanessa atlanta

Sara Orangetip * Anthocharis sara

Spring Azure * Celastrina ladon

Variable Checkerspot * Euphydryas chalcidona

Western Tiger Swallowtail * Papilio rutulus

Moths

Ornate Tiger Moth * Apantesis ornata

Great Ash Sphinx * Sphinx chersis

Spiders

Jumping Spider * Salticidae

Lynx Spider * Peucetia viridans

Other Cool Stuff

Asian Ladybug Larvae * Harmonia axyridis

Bluet Damselfly * Enallagma civile

Brown Prionid * Orthosoma brunneum

Decollate Snail * Rumina decollata

Green Lacewing * Chrysoperla rufilabris

Ornate Checkered Beetle

Planaria * Bipalium kewense

California Praying Mantis * Stagmomantis californica

More of Martin Fletchers nature photography can be found at Organic-Landscape.com