Why not attract more birds and lizards to your own garden? Here is what you need to do.
Provide food
Birds will come if you provide food for them, either by planting their favourite trees and shrubs or by putting out food and water. For information on plants to attract native birds look here or ask at your garden centre.
You can make your own feeders too. To attract silver-eyes you can just put some mutton fat in an onion bag and hang it up, or make a pine-cone feeder. For other easy-to-make feeders the Audubon Society has some good ideas, or search on the web.
If you have a bird bath put it well away from shrubs where cats could hide and don’t forget to keep it filled up in summer.
Keep them safe
If you have a cat then keep it inside at night and buy it a bell so birds can hear it coming.
Rats are a serious pest for birds and lizards. You can find out how to stop them from becoming established in your garden here or from this link to the Forest and Bird Pest Free Peninsula project.
Lizard homes
Forest and Bird also have some good information on how to attract lizards to your garden.
No weeds
Don’t forget to watch out for weeds in your garden, as some are every easily spread by wind or birds. For more information you can download the Auckland Council list of pest plants and what you can do about them, or go to the Weedbusters website.