Spring Gardening for Birders
Attract Birds to Your Garden by Adding Features that Birds Like
The availability of food, shelter, nesting sites, and water has a big impact on the number of birds that live in your backyard habitat.
In the spring, the garden comes to life, migratory birds return, and gardeners get out their gardening tools in happy anticipation of spring gardening. Many gardeners are bird watchers too, and they can design a garden with features that birds like. Birds look for food, shelter, nesting sites, and water—having just some of these will encourage birds to visit.
Providing food for birds
Many people have bird feeding stations to attract birds. You can offer nuts and seeds, suet, meat scraps, fruit, and nectar for hummingbirds. Do a little research on the birds that are common in your area and the types of food that they prefer if you want to make the most of feeders. In most areas, spring is the time to phase out suet and anything else likely to spoil in the summer heat—bring these back when the weather cools and the birds need them more.
Healthy gardens feed birds too. Add a variety of plants that grow food for birds: shrubs that produce flowers, fruit, or nuts; plants like daisies, purple coneflower and sunflowers that produce lots of seeds; and plants with pink, red, or orange tubular blossoms for hummingbirds. Be sure to choose plants that thrive in your climate zone.
If you’re not an organic gardener already, consider phasing out insecticides and lawn chemicals. These things not only kill insects, worms, and other garden life, they kill birds as well. In a healthy ecosystem, the pests are balanced by beneficial insects and other organisms—a healthy garden full of insects, earthworms, and other invertebrates is a buffet for birds.
Providing shelter for birds
Birds like transition zones between dense forest and open space—a garden with tall grasses, shrubbery, and patches of open breezy trees will provide shelter and attract lots of birds. Ideally, there should be patches of growth in the open and open spaces among the trees. Trees take a long time to grow and many gardeners don’t have the space, but most gardens can be designed with patches of taller shrubbery at the edges or near other garden features. Keep in mind that shrubs can shelter predators as well, a factor to consider when locating feeders, bird baths, and dust baths for birds.
Providing nesting sites for birds
A garden with good bird shelter will also offer nesting possibilities. Leave old trees with cavities in them, if possible, as these will entice cavity-nesting birds. If you want to add nesting boxes, platforms, or shelves, you might want to wait till autumn—many birds start nesting very early in spring, and a new nest box hung in the fall will be weathered and feel more natural by spring.
To encourage birds with nest building, offer short bits of string, yarn, thread, and hair, fabric scraps, twigs and other nesting materials. Dead plants from last season offer nesting materials as well, so don’t be too tidy!
Providing water for birds
A bird bath is the most popular way to provide birds with water. Locate the bath away from garden features that provide hiding places for cats and other predators, but close enough to shrubbery to give birds a place to flee to. Make sure you refresh the water in the bird bath regularly. You can also add a water feature to your garden, like a pond or waterfall, or provide a regular spray with a sprinkler or soaker hose. Some gardeners also build a dust bath for birds to help them with preening.
Sources:
Haussler, Lynn. “Winter Plans for Summer Bird Gardens”
Williston, Marjorie. The Complete Gardener’s Almanac. Halifax: Nimbus, 1993.
