guildfordcycads

I was reading a new book I got “Land Stewardship for Birds: A guide for Central Texas”.

It’s been an awesome read and highly recommend. When talking about water erosion on land, the book authors suggest not using culverts on the land, but create a low crossing with rocks. I have a cracked concrete culvert on my driveway that’s needed replacement. But now I’m going to look into alternative options. Whenever I search the internet, all I get are adds for culvert repair/replacement or how to install a new one.

Have any of y’all done this or have examples of removing a culvert and creating a natural low water crossing? It seems pretty straight forward IMO, but I like to see what others have done before I give it a try.

Maybe some important details for my circumstance:

The land is undeveloped, not driven on regularly. The water shed comes from a low area on neighbors property, not a creek or stream, so it only flows in major rain events. However, downstream of the culvert has been eroded over the years and I’ve been working to repair and slow water in the area for a while.

We have a small vineyard in a stone terrace and Madeiran wall lizards eat more than half of the grapes. We may add nestbox habitat for a local raptor that eats lizards and maybe spray garlic oil in the stone terraces….

Any biological / animal ideas to make the lizards decide to leave, be eaten by a predator or otherwise stop eating one grapes?

We don’t want to net the grapes or wrap the base of the vines (the vines lay flat in many cases).

Thoughts?