Excellent article about backyard habitat on CNN.com

Check it out. Val Schroeder of Camano Island (north of Seattle) deserves kudos.

Schroeder ripped up her grassy lawn because, even though it looked beautiful, it provided no shelter or food for animals. Then she looked for indigenous plants that would thrive in her yard with little maintenance.

"Living on an island, water conservation is a big issue," she says. "So I looked for plants that are drought tolerant and can handle the weather."

She added bird feeders and baths to provide needed food and water to native bird species.

"When you can't get people to buy huge tracts of land [for preservation as natural habitat], but you can get them to do something with their backyards, that's a lot of backyards to link up," Schroeder said.

(Emphasis mine.)