Last week I promised special links for bird watchers and bird wannabe watchers and there are some great ones at the end of this article! Some offer landscaping tips to help you attract more birds to your yarden and some provide tips for better general bird watching.
The links for birdsongs can be slow to load, but are really fun. I need to spend some time with these because while I recognize some bird calls, I have no idea which birds they come from. Maybe you'll be surprised by some of these too!
I especially hope the links to information on how to make your yarden plantings more "bird friendly" will be helpful. My best personal tip is that birds like "edges" and "mixed plantings" as in spots where lawn merges to shrubbery or shrubbery merges to woodsy or meadow merges to perennial garden -- lots of spots to nest, hide, find food and serve as observation posts!
My other major tip is to minimize chemical use in the yarden so that there are lots of safe foods available for the birds.
One other "no-brainer" tip is to set out a shallow pan of clean fresh water for them. Birds seem to like to be able to perch a little ways away in order to scope out the safety of the situation, and then flit on over to the water. This probably makes a lot of sense in those little bird brains!
I must admit to being a mere bird watcher as opposed to a serious birder. I am hard pressed to name more than a dozen birds in my garden, meadow or woods. But I do enjoy watching them. I give them my own creative identifying names like "the little brown ones that hop" or "those nasty red ones who keep fighting with each other"!
We have an official field guide, but I'd usually rather watch the real thing than spend time looking them up. The exception to this is special occasions like the day I saw a real, honest-to-goodness wild turkey out my kitchen window. I had to look it up to reassure myself that it was indeed a turkey. Wild turkeys are HUGE, in case you've never seen one before either!
I have some extra-favorite birds, too. I like the cardinals who nest in the big rhododendron by my kitchen door, and I like the robins who nest in the honeysuckle growing on the "tuteur" in the garden.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Barbara M. Martin's Cottage Garden topic, please visit the Discussions page.