Nursery Care Sheets

Attracting Birds

Attracting birds to your garden or yard is as simple as installing a few simple landscape elements in order to provide them with the basic necessities of life—shelter, food, water, and nesting areas. Just as healthy, vigorous plants are attractive in the landscape for their aesthetic qualities, birds also find many of the same trees, shrubs, annuals, and perennials attractive for how they can be useful.

Consider the Basics

Plants provide birds with excellent shelter from predators and inclement weather. When there is a nearby plant to escape to in times of trouble, a bird is more likely to stay in the area. Because of the protection plants can offer, they can also become great nesting sites. Birds look at plants as a safe haven for the eggs and hatchlings while the parents are away gathering food and nesting materials.

Another necessary resource for birds is that of food and water sources. Fruiting plant material provides an excellent food source for visiting birds. Providing adequate plant populations hallow pools of water, such as birdbaths and ponds, for drinking and bathing are the helpful. If the water is deeper, a perch or ledge is needed for the birds to make use of the water source. Quite often the sound of water attracts the birds as much as than the water itself, so sprinklers, waterfalls, and fountains are all attractive features to create curiosity among the bird community. In contrast, some birds prefer to bathe in dust, so an area free of grass is useful to allow these individuals to ruffle their feathers.

Plant Benefits

Just as birds depend on plants, the plants depend on the birds as well. Birds are important components to a plants pollination, and therefore the plants produce fruit that is appealing to birds in order to encourage seed dispersal. Often, plants that depend on birds for this process have fruit small enough to be consumed by a seed-eating bird.

To attract birds, ripened fruit is often brightly colored or the plant itself may turn as in the case of bright fall color of certain plants. Most plants which count on birds to disperse their seed, have fruit that ripens in fall. This is the time most birds are migrating, thus increasing seed dispersal. In addition fall fruits are often those with the highest sugar content providing more energy for the bird the time when it is most needed for migrating. Other plants’ fruit which ripens later in winter or early spring are often of low sugar content as the bird are not in need of extra energy at that time.

Keep in mind that most plants will attract birds solely because they offer shelter and insects to eat. Even seedless cultivars can be of great asset to the birds as a shelter and as a host for insect.

The More the Merrier

Birds are attracted to diverse plant communities - the larger the planting, the more birds attracted. Birds seek areas that fulfill all their needs. Providing this will increase the likelihood of attracted birds hanging around. Increase the value of a habitat by encouraging neighbors to plant as well!

The plants listed provide both cover and food.

Trees
Serviceberry
River Birch
Crabapple
Flowering Dogwood
Hawthorn
Sugar Maple
Oak
White Spruce
Sweetgum
Arborvitae
Hemlock
American Beech
Butternut
Tuliptree
Blackgum
Black Cherry
Hackberry
Persimmon

Shrubs
American Cranberry
Elderberry
Raspberry
Spicebush
Blueberry
Nannyberry
Northern Bayberry
Dogwood
Staghorn Sumac
Smooth Sumac
Red Chokeberry
Black Chokeberry
Hazelnut
Pyracantha
Arrowwood Viburnum
Blackhaw Viburnum
Snowberry
Coralberry

Annuals
Amaranthus
Calendula
Celosia
Dusty Miller
Moss Rose
Sunflower
Verbena
Zinnia


Perennials
Aster spp.
Centaurea spp.
Campanula spp.
Chrysanthemum spp.
Coreopsis spp.
Phlox spp.
Rudbeckia spp.
Scabiosa atropurpurea

A Note About Bird Seed

In addition to providing plants to feed the birds in the area, bird feeders are a great way to supplement their feeding. However, certain types of seed will attract different types of birds.

Sunflower Seeds - Cardinals, finches, sparrows, juncos, crossbills, cowbirds, towhees, blackbirds, grackles, chickadees, titmice, warblers, flickers, nuthatches, grosbeaks, jays

Thistle - Finches, sparrows, chickadees, titmice, towhees, juncos, mourning doves

Safflower - Cardinals, titmice, grosbeaks, nuthatches, chickadees

Mixed Seeds - Buntings, towhee, starling, kinglet, black-capped chickadee, red-bellied woodpecker

Millet - Finches, sparrows, juncos, dickcissels, cowbird, blackbirds, doves

Suet - Nuthatches, woodpeckers, wrens, warblers, mockingbirds, jays

Peanuts - Woodpeckers, jays, crows, titmice, chickadees, nuthatches

Corn - Doves, sparrows, cowbirds, jays, grackles, starlings, blackbirds