Lizards are beneficial inhabitants of any garden, acting as natural pest control agents that help manage insect populations. Attracting these fascinating reptiles to your outdoor space requires creating an environment that meets their specific needs for survival and safety. This involves carefully designing habitats, maintaining a healthy food supply, and actively removing potential dangers. By focusing on these elements, you can transform a typical backyard into a welcoming sanctuary for local lizard species.
Designing Habitats and Shelter
Lizards are ectotherms, meaning they rely on external heat sources to regulate their body temperature, which makes specific habitat design a necessity for their presence. Creating basking areas is a primary step, and this can be achieved by placing flat rocks, pieces of concrete, or logs in spots that receive direct morning sunlight. The dark surfaces of these materials absorb and retain heat, allowing the lizards to quickly warm up to an optimal temperature for hunting and digestion.
Alongside basking spots, lizards need secure hiding places, known as refugia, to escape predators and cool down from extreme heat. Constructing rock piles, loose stacks of bricks, or log piles provides the tight crevices they prefer. Lizards often seek out gaps between 5 and 19 millimeters wide, which offer protection while still allowing for easy movement. Old terracotta pipes or broken pots turned on their side also function well as ready-made, secure shelters.
Vegetation provides cover and hunting grounds. Dense, low-growing shrubs and native ground covers, such as tussock grasses, offer overhead protection from birds of prey and conceal movement. This layered approach to landscaping mimics their natural environment, providing safe corridors between basking and hiding spots. Leaving a small, undisturbed area of uncompacted substrate, such as loose soil or sand, allows some species to dig burrows or lay eggs.
Cultivating Natural Food Sources
The primary diet of most backyard lizards consists of insects, spiders, and other small invertebrates, requiring a healthy insect population for attraction. Ensure a robust food supply by completely avoiding chemical pesticides and herbicides in the garden. These chemicals not only kill the lizards’ food source but can also harm the lizards directly through contact or secondary poisoning.
Instead of chemical intervention, encourage a thriving community of ground-dwelling invertebrates through organic gardening practices. Maintaining areas of leaf litter and using organic mulch helps conserve soil moisture and creates a protected, humid environment that attracts desirable prey like crickets, beetles, and slugs. Starting a compost pile or leaving decaying wood also acts as a magnet for insects, providing a concentrated feeding area for lizards.
While lizards obtain moisture from prey and dew, a supplemental water source can be beneficial, especially in dry conditions. Provide a very shallow dish of water in a shaded, protected spot. The water must be kept extremely shallow, perhaps with small stones inside to provide an easy exit ramp, as lizards are not strong swimmers. Regular cleaning and refilling prevents the water from becoming stagnant or attracting mosquitoes.
Protecting Lizards from Hazards
Once established, maintaining lizard safety from common domestic threats is necessary. Domestic cats are a significant predator and pose one of the greatest dangers to backyard lizards. Keeping cats indoors, especially during peak activity hours (morning and evening), is the most effective protective measure. If confinement is not feasible, restricting access to known lizard habitats reduces hunting pressure.
Chemical hazards include rodenticides used for rat and mouse control. Lizards can suffer secondary poisoning if they consume insects that have ingested the poison, or if they eat the poisoned rodents themselves. Eliminating all forms of poison from the backyard ecosystem is essential to protect the reptile population.
Structural dangers can be lethal to small reptiles. Sticky insect traps can trap and immobilize lizards, leading to a slow and stressful death. These glue traps should be removed entirely from outdoor areas. Deep buckets, window wells, or uncovered drains act as pitfalls. Covering these hazards or ensuring they have a simple escape ramp is necessary.