Inviting birds to your garden is a wonderful way to learn how to birdwatch at home and get started gardening for wildlife. In this blog post, we'll discuss the three things birds need to be attracted to your yard: shelter, water, and food.

The easiest way to invite birds to your garden is by planting native plants!

If you're new to birdwatching, there are several local and online resources to help you learn. Local nature centers like Brukner Nature Center and Aullwood Audubon frequently offer birdwatching classes and other programs. You can also support bird and wildlife-focused organizations like Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society, and the National Wildlife Federation.

A physical guidebook can be a great way to learn about the birds in your neighborhood. Classic guides like Sibley and Peterson are often regionally focused on Eastern or Western North America. The Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America is a popular and easy-to-use first-time guide.

You can use many online identification resources, such as Cornell's All About Birds and the Merlin Bird ID app. We recommend the iNaturalist App for identifying birds, plants, insects, and more!

Before we dive in, here's a warning: gardening for birds can be a slippery slope into gardening for wildlife, including creatures you may be less enamored with than birds or even frightened of.

Planting native plants and creating pockets of wild space in your yard will invite other creatures, like insects, frogs, snakes, and chipmunks, to your outdoor spaces. Our gardens are habitat for all kinds of wildlife, including birds and the small critters they eat. When gardening specifically for birds, you must create habitat and provide food sources for the insects many birds eat.

Many people have a type of wildlife that started them as wildlife gardeners. For me, that was birds. As I began creating habitat for birds, I became more familiar with the insects that were also attracted to my native plants, and I now garden for all the different small creatures I find in my yard.

Some creatures visiting your plants may gross you out, like toads, or even scare you or your family, like wasps, bees, or snakes. Gardening for wildlife is an excellent way to address those fears and feel more comfortable around those animals.

Gardening For Birds - Creating A Safe Space

Stop the Spray

Gardening for birds also means gardening for the bugs they eat. Insecticides are chemicals used to kill insects, whereas pesticides are chemicals used to control or kill a wide range of pests, including insects, rodents, and weeds. If you spray insecticides in your yard, you will kill insects that could be fed to baby birds. Avoid all insecticide use, including products that claim to target only "bad bugs."

Planting native plants invites insects into your yard, including insects that prey on other insects, like aphids eating your tomato plants. Most insect "problems" in the garden can be solved with patience. Rather than spraying your tomato plants with an insecticide, you can wait for one of the insect predators like ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, or parasitic wasps who eat aphids to come along and protect your tomato plants from damage.

For protection against mosquitoes, bug spray applied to your skin, using a fan when outdoors, and removing sources of standing water are all much safer ways to enjoy the outdoors without destroying a valuable food source for birds. Flea and tick prevention from your veterinarian is safer for your pet and insects and more effective than treating your yard for fleas or ticks.

Holey leaves in your garden, especially your native plants, are a sign that you have insects using your plants for food. Caterpillars munch through leaves, and Leafcutter bees cut nearly perfect circles in the leaves they use to build their nests. When you see damage to a plant in your garden, most of the time, it's because the wildlife you've invited to your yard have decided to stay.

Wildlife Piles And Cavity Trees

Many species of birds, small mammals, and insects use dead plant material for nesting sites or places of refuge. You can create brush or wildlife piles from old branches, plant stems, and weeds. A small wildlife pile can be made by stacking branches under a shrub in your landscaping or the corner of your yard.

Woodpeckers, owls, chickadees, and nuthatches are some of the birds that use cavities for nest sites. Cavity nests are safer than open nests. If you have a tree in your yard that has died and is not in danger of falling on your home or your neighbor's property, consider leaving it to be used by wildlife. You could have an owl nest in your yard!

Skip Fall Clean Up

Less garden chores for you means more food for the birds. Native plants are natural bird feeders, and if you clean up your garden each fall by cutting back the flowerheads and stalks of perennial plants, you'll throw away free bird food. Many butterfly and moth species spend the winter in fallen leaves. If you rake your leaves into piles for your city to collect, you throw away free bird food. Clumps of grasses or sedges can also provide a safe space for various creatures to escape the cold.

Lights Out

Lights from our homes and landscaping can disorient migrating birds and harm nocturnal insects. Better options for exterior lighting are to use motion sensor lighting or only light areas that could be tripping hazards in the dark. Eliminating decorative landscape lighting is better for birds and insects. The lights inside our homes can also affect birds and insects, but using drapes or blinds can make a huge difference.

Keeping Cats Indoors

Cats are opportunistic predators and will kill regardless of whether they are hungry or not. They've been observed eating over 2,000 species of wildlife. Keeping cats inside keeps your cat and the wildlife in your yard safe.

For cats that cannot be housed indoors, like feral or stray cats, TNR (Trap Neuter Return) is the best option. If you feed outdoor cats that are not friendly, having them neutered will reduce their population.

Gardening For Birds - Providing Water

All creatures need water to survive. You can provide water for birds with a bird bath or something more extensive like a wildlife pond. Moving water sources, like a bubbler installed in a small wildlife pond or bird bath, are desirable to birds. The movement can also reduce the ability of some mosquito larvae to survive.

Gardening For Birds - Providing Food (Plant Native Plants!)

Planting native plants is the easiest way to invite birds to your yard! However, not all native plants are directly bird food. Some feed the insects that adult birds eat, and insects make up most of the diet of baby birds.

Keystone Species

Keystone plants are native plants that play an essential role in the food web for many wildlife species to complete their life cycle. The following species are host plants to many insect species.

Trees + Shrubs

Oaks
Prunus
Willows

Flowers:

Asters
Sunflowers
Goldenrod
Rudbeckia

Gardening For Birds

Before we dive in, here's a warning: gardening for birds can be a slippery slope into gardening for wildlife, including creatures you may be less enamored with than birds or even frightened of.