Attracting backyard birds and butterflies for bird watching
Establishing a small wildlife sanctuary in your backyard will reward you by attracting a variety of birds and butterflies for you to enjoy viewing. Many will visit, and some may actually stay to nest and rear their young in your backyard. You will want to create a yard or garden that will attract birds and butterflies and make them feel at home.

If birds and butterflies pass through your yard, but never seem to stay, it may be because your yard doesn't provide a varied, long-term food supply. Birds that overwinter in your garden need to find food 365 days of the year. Small birds eat almost constantly during daylight hours in the winter. Migratory songbirds need large amounts of food for varying amounts of time, often just a day or two.

Creating a garden that welcomes songbirds, hummingbirds, and butterflies is a relatively simple task. It consists of supplying them with three basic requirements for survival: food, cover, and water. To birds and butterflies, the typical suburban landscape resembles an unfriendly desert. Close-cropped lawns, sheared foundation shrubs, and deadheaded flowers mean no place to nest, no food to eat, and nowhere to hide.

Fortunately, any landscape can become a haven for winged wildlife, and for the people who share it.

Landscaping with food sources in mind

To create a landscape that provides birds with a guaranteed, year-round food supply, you need to plant an assortment of plant species that provides seeds, berries, nuts, or other food throughout the year. Planting a diverse selection helps ensure that a variety of food sources is always available. Choose different plantings that produce food throughout each of the four seasons.

Deciduous plantings, plants whose leaves drop off in winter, generally bear the most fruit, nuts, and seeds for wildlife. In addition, they offer shady, leafy nesting sites in the spring and summer. Even a flower garden can provide a place for birds to eat and hide.

Evergreens, which bear leaves throughout the year, offer a good source of berries and seed-filled cones. They also offer year-round shelter, protection, and breeding sites.

The best way to start planning a food supply for your guests is to take an inventory of what is already growing in your yard. Draw a rough map of your property. Make notes about what plants are growing in your yard. Use a field guide or garden book to identify plants you're not familiar with. Also note the sun exposure and shade throughout the day. Then use a plant guide to determine which plants your yard has that are good providers, and which are not.

You may already have a number of trees, flowers, and shrubs attractive to various species of birds. Plan to supplement with native fruiting trees, shrubs, and vines. Reduce the area occupied by the lawn. Wide expanses of turf grass are sterile habitats attracting less desireable "generalist" species, such as feral pigeons, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, all of which compete with our native songbirds for food and nesting spots.

You will want to determine when your plants are providing food for birds, for example, nuts and acorns in winter, flowers and seeds in the summer. You may want to remove some plants that do not provide food in order to make room for ones that do. Make separate lists for each season.

Begin with what your yard provides, and add to it plants you can grow that will provide more food that season. Concentrate on first adding plants that provide food during seasons when nothing much is available in your yard.

Trying to transform your yard into a haven for birds and butterflies overnight is an easy way to become frustrated, so plan on making gradual changes over the course of several planting seasons. Use your notes as a guide. Identify one or two areas to concentrate on for the first year. For example, if you have a single tree in your front yard, consider adding more trees and underplanting with berry-producing shrubs and ground covers.

Plan to add plants gradually as your budget and time allow. Buy only as many plants as you can care for at one time. Newly added plants take more water and care than older, established ones. Proper soil preparation, watering, and mulching are all essential to getting new plants off to a good start.

Providing Safe Food
Organic gardening is another essential ingredient in any landscape that welcomes birds and butterflies. One reason is that organic gardens are teeming with insects and other organisms that birds enjoy. Many of the insects that thrive in an organic garden are beneficial: that is, they eat other insects and keep the populations in check.

Birds will help control garden pests, along with insects such as gnats and mosquitos. Instead of waging war against pests and diseases with an arsenal of chemicals, organic gardening nudges the ecosystem into a healthy balance. Preventive techniques like building healthy soil are an important first line of defense against pests.

A working knowledge of organic gardening is important to a gardener intent on attracting birds and butterflies. Avoid the use of pesticides in your yard. Many insecticides remove all insects, which serve as the prey base for insectivorous birds. A poisoned insect will in turn poison the bird. Using plants native to your region reduces the need for pesticide use since the native plants are resistant to local pests and diseases.

Mockingbirds, warblers, vireos, wrens, and many others relish insect pests. Provide splashes of color in different areas of the garden. Birds and butterflies are highly visual and are attracted by brightly colored flowers and fruit. Hummingbirds are especially fond of red and orange tubular flowers. Red flowers will attract birds during migration.

Use native grasses as accent plants and in wildlife meadow patches. Many birds eat seeds of native grasses. Consider letting your garden go to seed rather than dead-heading flowers and removing spent plants. Doing so provides a wealth of nutritious food for many species of seed-eating birds. To find out which plants grow best in your area and will best fill your specific needs, consult a local gardening book, or nursery.

Plants native to your region are excellent for birds, because they are familiar and accepted as food sources, shelter, and nest sites. Native fruits and berries are nutritious, and they ripen on a schedule that coincides with natural needs at nesting and migration times, or during winter months. They are also perfectly sized for birds to eat, unlike some improved varieties or exotic plants whose fruits are unpalatable or too big.

The Plant Layout for Attracting Birds for bird watching
The spacing between trees and shrubs, the preferred combination of open areas and adjoining thick cover, and the degree of seclusion and protection from the wind are all important factors when designing for birds. If possible, even open spaces should be well protected from wind and street noise to appeal to birds.

Increase the variety and numbers of plants attractive to birds in your landscape and you are virtually guaranteed more birds that stay longer. Create a layered and multi-tiered garden, increase the amount of edge between wooded areas and open areas, and provide a rich understory.

Edges between habitats are prime opportunities to offer a dense and diverse assortment of bird-attracting plants. Where woods meet open lawn is a good spot for a mixed border of shrubs and small trees. This will increase bird species diversity in your yard.

Think in layers in the landscape to attract birds. Provide several layers for different kinds of birds by planting clusters of shade-loving small trees, shrubs, and ground covers under taller trees. Look at natural woodlands around you to get ideas for plant combinations.

Many bird species appreciate edge habitat, such as hummingbirds, phoebes, titmice, and orioles. They utilize the open flying space of driveways, lawns, and other corridors, which allow them easy access to the lush plants along the borders. In all birdscapes, a diversity of plants provides the greatest benefit. Berries and seeds will ripen at different times of the year, a range of nesting materials and nest sites will be available, and a greater variety of insects will be found on the plants.

Keep in mind that a natural woodland is generally free from human traffic, which can disturb the often shy birds of the forest. Let fallen leaves lie instead of raking them away. They will settle into a bed of mulch that adds richness to the soil as well as creating insect-rich areas for ground-foraging birds. Include about half evergreen and half deciduous plants in your woodland.

This may be difficult for the tidy gardener, but try to maintain a brush pile in an out-of-the way spot to attract sparrows, towhees, and other birds. Carefully preserve dead trees. Large dead branches, standing dead trees, fallen trees, and stumps are excellent bird attractors, thanks to the insects and larvae that burrow into their wood. They also provide nesting sites for nuthatches, woodpeckers, chickadees, and other cavity-nesting birds.