Examining the area around your home, you may be surprised with what you find. Believe it or not, if you live in the heart of Charlotte, or in the vast countryside, the area around your home is called an ecosystem!

Every ecosystem functions similarly, though they have different strengths and native species that allow them to carry out their daily function. Let us take a look at what species you may find in the ecosystem of your home around the Piedmont area.

One very prominent member of your backyard ecosystem is the many species of bird that the Piedmont area is home to. There are over 300 species of bird who call North Carolina’s Piedmont area home, many of which we see nearly every day in our backyards!

Some you may be most familiar with are the Northern Cardinal, the Blue Jay, the American Robin, the Eastern Blue Bird and many others that frequent your treetops and search your lawn for a meal.

Another prominent backyard visitor is one of the many species of squirrel that live here in North Carolina. This state is home to five different species of squirrel, including the gray squirrel and the flying squirrel.

These agile members of the ecosystem flourish within our communities, and the grey squirrel is known as North Carolina’s state mammal due to their high populations!

If we look a little smaller than our avian members and our tree-dwelling mammal populations, we can see the many species of insect which carry out numerous important roles for our ecosystem. While we usually look at insects and consider them to be pests, we often forget about the integral roles that they play for us in our daily lives.

Insects such as bees carry out roles as pollinators, bringing important pollen from flower to flower, supporting our local fauna. Arachnids such as the common house spider or the Carolina Wolf spider eat pests who can cause damage to your home or overpopulate your backyard, such as cockroaches and gnats.

Be sure to be on the lookout for a variety of other species, including groundhogs, deer, corn and rat snakes, and Eastern box turtles. Each and every one of these species carry out integral roles in keeping our backyard ecosystems healthy and thriving.