July 21, 2011

How to attract birds to your yard and garden

Wildbirds.com has this advice about attracting birds to your yard for you to enjoy and identify:

Plants & Flowers that Will Attract Birds

Planting a few flowers around your yard will attract hummingbirds and butterflies this summer. Longer-term, planting fruit trees for food and evergreens for shelter will make your yard more attractive to the birds for years into the future.

Here are some plants that will attract birds:

Flowers
Aster
Bachelor Button
Black-eyed Susan
California Poppy
Chrysanthemum
Columbine
Marigold
Purple Coneflower
Sunflowers

Small Trees
Bayberry
Cedar (Juniper)
Cherry
Crab Apple
Dogwood
Eastern Hemlock
Hawthorn
Plumb
Japanese Maple
Serviceberry
Sumac

Shrubs and Vines
Blackberry
Boxwood
Elderberry
English Ivy
Grape
Holly
Honeysuckle
Juniper
Myrtle
Raspberry
Spicebush
Viburnum
Virginia Creeper
Witchhazel
Yew

Don't forget to provide safe places for birds to hide. Dense trees around the perimeter of your yard will attract birds. Make a diagram of your yard and plan how it will look in five years, ten years and beyond. A pile of brush in a corner of the yard will give smaller birds a place to hide from Hawks.

At Birding Basics