Thursday, July 26, 2007

Gardening for the Birds

I love birds in the garden. With a little imagination and some knowledge it is possible to turn your yard into a bird habitat. Watching birds around a feeder or a bird bath can provide hours of entertainment. We have a birdbath, a fountain, and a feeder we keep stocked 12 months out of the year. We provide extra energy in the winter with a suet feeder also. But even more importantly, our landscape has the ingredients to make our feathered friends feel welcome. To make your yard hospitable just think like a bird. Actually, birds require the same things we want in a home: shelter, food and water, and a place to raise babies.

It is easy to make your garden a haven for the birds. Look around to see if there is food (the right food), water, safety from predators (such as cats or hawks), a place to build a nest, or to get out of the rain. Then decide if you, the gardener, make good choices as to the use of herbicides and pesticides and other garden practices.

Water
Birds drink the water and bathe in it too. Your water source can be as simple as a bird bath; the sound of running water, however, is irresistible to the birds. When I turn on the sprinkler, birds appear from all over to splash in the water. One morning I looked out to find more than a dozen yellow finches sitting on the edge of the fountain taking turns getting a drink or a bath. A small puddle in the driveway can bring a gathering. Keep your birdbath clean and filled with fresh water. Catalogues are full of devices to prevent the water from freezing in the winter as birds need water during the cold months just as during the warm months. 

Safety
Shelter is of prime importance. As birds are always alert to predators, four-footed and flying, provide plenty of places to escape and to hide. A mixture of deciduous and evergreen shrubs provides a hiding place for all types of birds. (If you plant shrubs or trees with berries or nuts you can supply shelter and sustenance with the same plant.)
Places to perch–birds will perch on tree and shrub limbs to survey the area; different birds like different levels and types of places to perch. The birds who eat in our bird feeders perch in the close-by trees and then fly down to eat from the feeder and then return to their perches.
Seclusion—Secluded areas of shrubbery provide great places to build nests as well as to hide.
Dead trees are always popular; birds can carve out a nest or a place to roost and the insects tunneling under the bark are a special treat. Of course if a dead tree is a danger for humans, you can’t keep it for the birds either. Brush piles also make wonderful hiding places (and spots for building nests).

Food
Be sure to add plants to your garden that provide natural sources of food: berries and seeds. Berries with a low fat content such as those that appear in the winter are not as attractive to birds as those that often appear in the fall (like dogwood berries). Supplement the natural foods in your yards with a feeder; birding catalogues and area stores are full of different types of seeds from niger to thistle to black oil sunflower; sunflower seed hearts being the food of choice at the Blanton home.  The initial cost may be a bit higher but you don’t get the mess of piles of discarded hulls, and there is much less waste. Place your feeder carefully so there is always an escape route and a safe place to go should a wandering cat come by. It is hard not to mention bird feeders without mentioning the enemy of the bird watcher, the squirrel. It was not until we began to feed the birds that I learned how smart squirrels could be. (The same squirrels that robbed my bird feeder also dug up whatever plants were new to the garden.) No matter what solutions we tried—hot pepper powder (purchased from a garden store) mixed with the seed, baffles to keep the squirrels from climbing up the poles or down them, hanging the feeder in different locations, even supposedly “squirrel proof” feeders—the squirrels emptied the seeds as fast as we filled the feeders. We had so many squirrels the birds could not eat. That is, until in a catalogue we discovered the miracle bird feeder, a feeder that gives tiny little shocks to anything that weighs more than a bird. Don’t worry it is humane, my husband has tried it more than once. It worked–one squirrel did a cartwheel, and must have sent message to all his or her buddies, because now the squirrels stick to what the birds drop on the ground.

Making a home
If you have plenty of shrubs you will be providing ideal places to build nests but for birds who prefer to nest in cavities (such as bluebirds, chickadees, wrens and woodpeckers), you may need to give them some help in the form of bird houses. There are special houses designed for different birds. Do a little research before you place your house to see what will be attractive to your local birds.

Good choices
As you plan your yard it is also necessary to make some smart choices–smart for the birds and smart for the environment, in general. Stay away from harsh chemicals. Use products that are safe for your birds, your pets and your children. Don’t get rid of all the insects in your yard; they are food for the birds. If you use fertilizers choose natural or organic ones, especially on your lawn. As birds search for food most anything in your lawn can become a possible food source including your chemicals. If you spray a fertilizer, water it in as quickly as possible. Consider making a rain garden; a slight depression where your gutters end filled with moisture loving plants will be an instant draw for birds such as robins.
Another good choice is something we as gardeners do naturally: to mulch our gardens. Birds look in the mulch for worms. At my house they use the pine straw mulch to build their nests. When you mulch you get the extra benefits of helping to retain moisture in the soil (so important in these drought-filled days), keeping down weed growth, and decaying in time, amending your soil.

There is so much more to be learned about gardening for the birds; various web sites and books are excellent sources of information.

Most gardeners dread the gray days of winter when we can only stare outside and dream of spring. But a yard full of birds can quickly change that dreary landscape into a cheery one. Start planning today for your bird habitat.