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Want to attract more birds and wildlife to
your yard? Here are some tips:
Go
Native
Birds choose environments
that provide them with water, food, and shelter. If you
provide the water in your yard � still or running -- native
plants can do the rest.
Native
plants, which are more likely to thrive
without the need for
fertilizers, pesticides, watering, and maintenance,
offer the foods best suited to the birds of our area. They
can provide nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies in the
summer and seeds for finches and sparrows in the fall.
Native shrubs help
provide dense thickets where birds can nest, perch, and
escape from predators.
Native Plants for Song Birds
sunflowers, blazing star, big bluestem, little bluestem,
switch grass, downy serviceberry, hackberry, dogwood,
juniper,
elderberry, and hawthorn.
for Hummingbirds
columbine, jewelweed, native
phlox, and cardinal flower.
for
Butterflies
aster, purple cone-flower,
blazing star, native phlox, vervain, black-eyed Susan,
coreopsis, joe-pye weed, goldenrod, and ironweed.
No Need to Clean
Husbands
everywhere will be glad to hear that dead limbs and trees
should be left in place (when it�s safe to do so.) Insects
that live in dead wood are an important food source for
birds such as woodpeckers, chickadees, and nuthatches.
Cavity-nesting birds such as bluebirds and woodpeckers need
old, hollow trees to nest in.
Don�t
deadhead your flower beds in fall -- birds will love you for
it. If you leave the dead seed heads on purple coneflowers,
black-eyed susans, and sunflower, goldfinches, redpolls, and
other seed-eaters will feast on the seeds.
Diversify
To keep birds coming back
for more, select a variety of plants. The larger the variety
of plants you grow, the more different kinds of birds your
yard will attract. Include some of each of these important
plant groups:
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Grasses and
legumes
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Nectar-producing plants
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Summer and
fall fruiting plants
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Winter
persistent plants
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Nut and
acorn plants
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