Your guide to encouraging local fauna to visit your backyard

05 Apr. 2024
4 min read

Want a visit from native bees, birds, beneficial insects or even bandicoots? Here’s how to attract them.

Would you like to encourage local fauna to visit you?

Check out our tips on attracting birds, bees, beneficial insects, and bandicoots to your backyard – depending on the region of South Australia you live in, of course.

1. Attracting native bees to your garden

Native bees play an important role in the environment, as they pollinate native plants and help plants reproduce.

There’s about 1,650 native bee species in Australia, with at least 200 of these species found in the Adelaide Hills.

With all that in mind, there’s lots you can do to entice native bees to your garden. Make sure you choose native plants for your garden that native bees would choose, avoid the use of insecticides, and give native bees somewhere to live.

Find out all the details in our story: How to attract native bees to your garden .

Did you know? Native bees don’t typically sting. Most bees sting to defend their hives, but most native bees don’t build hives. And some native bees actually aren’t capable of stinging.

2. Attracting birds to your yard

From the suburbs to the bush, every part of SA has its special group of local birds.

From the more common visitors like willy wagtails or magpies, to the more unusual blue wrens or kingfishers, many people love to see birds in their gardens.

Feeding birds can cause problems, such as illnesses caused by poor diets, and birds becoming dependent on tasty human handouts.

So how can we let birds know they are welcome in our yards without putting out food?

It can be as simple as providing clean water for them, choosing native plants that they can feast on, leaving leaf-litter or mulch for the insects, small lizards and invertebrates that birds love, and being careful with controlling your pets.

Read our story: How to bring birds to your garden to learn more.

3. Inviting insects into your garden

You might not love bugs, but your garden does.

Nearly two-thirds of flowering plants need insects for pollination, and beneficial insects also keep unwanted bugs under control. If you grow fruit and vegetables in your garden, beneficial insects will also improve your harvests.

Building an insect hotel will make beneficial pollinating insects feel welcome in your garden. It can be a great family activity and an opportunity for children to learn more about bees and insects.

All you need is a collection of small hollows where native bees or insects can rest and lay their eggs, and a safe place to leave it where it won’t be disturbed, and you’re all set.

For more inspiration, read our story: How you can invite more insects into your garden .

4. Attracting bandicoots to your yard

While there used to be 8 bandicoot species across SA, now only one remains – the southern brown bandicoot. Spotting these rat doppelgangers is extremely rare because they are endangered.

If you live in the Adelaide Hills and would love for a bandicoot to visit your yard, there’s a few things you can do to help the process.

You can plant bandicoot-approved understory plants like bearded heath, common fat-pea and wire rapier-sedge or shrubs like heath wattle, large-leaved bush-pea, yacca, or hakea.

And best of all, bandicoots like the protection that dead plants and fallen branches provide, so being a little bit lazy in the backyard can be used as an excuse for trying to help these elusive creatures.

Read our story: How to attract bandicoots to your backyard for everything you need to know.

Need some inspiration for other activities to do in your backyard? Undertake these Autumn gardening projects, or try your hand at composting .