Creating a wildlife garden can be one of the easiest and most rewarding experiences a bird watcher could wish for. All that wildlife require, are four features in order to call a place home – food, water, cover and a place to nest – and we can provide all this, and more even in a small environment. If for any reason you can not, then doing something for wildlife is better than doing nothing.
There are two kinds of food that we can provide; putting out bird seed and installing natural plantings that include berries. The former can be as simple as throwing out seed on a patch of bare dirt or filling bird feeders. This offers the ability to provide a variety of food in pleasing to look at feeders. The latter allows you to landscape your yard with native plants that will benefit wildlife throughout the year, and which in turn will provide essential cover for the birds.
The placement of bird feeders is crucial to maximizing your enjoyment. You want to place them where you are going to see them. Locating them a short distance from the window that you spend the most time near, such as the living room or dinning room, is perfect.
The key is providing a variety of types of feeders and food. Examples of feeders include, platform, which has either an open top or open sides; hopper, where seed is dispensed from the lower sides, and tube, which have perches for birds to perch and feed. Offer food such as suet and peanuts, which woodpeckers, nuthatches and wrens adore; millet for ground feeders such as sparrows and doves; thistle for goldfinches and house finches; safflower, a favorite of cardinals, and black oil sunflower which many birds like especially titmouse and chickadees. The more types of feeders and greater variety of food you have to offer, the more birds you will attract.
Many birds including this Blue Jay, are fond of the high fat content they get from eating peanuts. Peanut halves (
above), as these are called, are placed in a wire mesh tube feeder and the birds can cling to the outside to feed themselves.
all photos © adrian binns