You Want Me To Go Where?
Please click the flower to view photographs of Boggs Lake Preserve taken by the artists of Manzanita Enterprises, Inc.  Click galleries, scroll down to the United States, and use the white window to select CA - Boggs Lake Wilderness Area - Lake County.
please click here
Rest is not idleness, and to go lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
                            ~ J. Lubbock
What Is A Habitat?
Our planet Earth offers many different environments. Tundra, jungle, desert, grassland, and wetland are all examples of enviroments. These different environments have different  temperatures, moisture levels, light conditions, availabilities of food, and amounts of shelter. Each environment, or habitat, is a home for the distinct life forms living in it. Some plants and animals cannot survive when their habitat is destroyed. This is because the plants and animal  living in a habitat become an interdependent community. Vernal pools are wetland habitats. Wetlands are home to amphibians, birds, and other forms of wildlife including one third of America's threatened and endangered species. Important breeding grounds, creatures that live out most of their lives in other areas return to wetlands to have their young.  While some people dismiss their usefulness, wetlands are productive habitats and provide a wide variety of plants and animals to the world's food web.
Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.
                                                         ~ Job
But How Does Anything Live Out There?
Organisms can only survive in environments where their needs are met. The vernal pool offers food, water, shelter, and space to grow! Both plants and animals require energy so that they can grow. Animals get their energy from the animals and/or plants they eat. Animals need to eat year abound but the food they eat often changes with the seasons. For example, deer eat grass in the spring and summer, acorns and berries in the fall and whatever they can find in the winter.  Plants do not have to eat. They get their energy from the sun through photosynthesis.  Both plants and animals have to have water. Land  plants require much more water than land animals because they transpire most of the water they absorb.
Please click on the chipmunk to read an excellent lesson plan on what animals need to survive
Give Me Shelter
Cover, or shelter, is a place where animals can escape from enemies, get out of the weather, and feel safe while they rest. It also offers a safe place for raising young. Animals can die of hypothermia, starvation, or disease if they do not have enough shelter. Boggs Lake Preserve offers a variety of cover including trees, bushes, fallen limbs, rotting logs and rocks piles.

Different types of animals need different types of shelter. Acorn Woodpeckers require dead trees for their granaries and nesting sites. Owls and squirrels use trees as their nesting sites as well. Tall grass and weedy areas are the preferred nesting areas for jackrabbits. Deer spend the hot afternoons in the shade of  shrubby areas. Even the rock piles are inhabited by lizards, chipmunks, snakes, and mice.

Hosting by WebRing.