If you feed them, they will come. But will they stay?
If you've ever installed a bird feeder that gets commandeered by jays and squirrels, you know it takes some work to feed the birds you had in mind. A short-term solution is to look at the design of the feeder; in the long term, the way to keep songbirds outside your window is to focus on the design of the garden, using plants that will both attract songbirds and offer them protection from predators.
From a bird's point of view, a garden is “an island of habitat in a nonproductive landscape,” according to birder and ecologist Josiah Clarke, who spoke to a group of native-plant enthusiasts last month in Palo Alto.
A habitat provides food, water, cover, and nesting places. In other words, it's a safe neighborhood to raise the young.
The more you can provide what the birds need, the greater your chances of keeping them around. Many birds eat insects, so the first step in making them feel at home is to avoid using pesticides. A few aphids on the roses are not pests, they are part of the food chain in your garden.
Another key is to keep leaf blowers out of your garden. Leaf blowers should never be used in garden areas anyway, because they degrade healthy soil. But leaving a layer of leaves under shrubs and trees delights birds who like to forage for insects there.
A few design changes will make your garden more bird-friendly. Wherever possible, increase the structural complexity. Use curved lines with lots of niches and protrusions, rather than straight lines, so birds can quickly take cover. Use stepping stones rather than contiguous path materials. Create connections between island beds.
Intersecting layers of plant material not only offer diverse food sources, but offer a greater range of insects and more nesting opportunities, Clark says. They also create the filtered light birds prefer.
Select mostly native plants. Native oaks host hundreds of species of insects – think of them as a smorgasbord for birds. Other native trees and shrubs also support many insects. For berries as well as twiggy cover, try coffeeberry, elderberry, manzanita, and ceanothus.
Clark calls such plants as agapanthus and privet worthless for wildlife. Eucalyptus is a habitat “sink,” says Clark, because nests get shaken out in the wind.
If your neighborhood has roaming cats or other predators, Clark recommends surrounding an island of native plants with aggressively spiny plants such as agave or yucca. Well-fed cats wait longer, Clark says, so they are more successful at bird predation than starving cats. For a smaller garden, offer refuge with a spiny shrub such as fuchsia-flowered gooseberry or nevin barberry.
Having enough cover at the back of the garden can influence the whole garden, Clark says. For instance, an oak or elderberry along the fence can provide leaf litter and shade as well as cover. In the spring, the budding-out leaves of deciduous trees are the best places to find insects, which feed migrant birds coming north.
“Weedy natives are some of the best plants for your garden” and should form the background or backbone of it, Clark says. Try cow parsnip, which looks like giant parsley gone to seed. In lawns, try yarrow and beach or woodland strawberry. “Let these be the plants that are spread by birds,” he says, instead of the more common pyracantha, cotoneaster, ivy, and himalayan blackberry.
To attract a specific type of bird, you can install nesting boxes with the appropriate hole size, as well as choose special plants. Goldfinches are partial to thistles, for instance. Hummingbirds love trumpet-shaped red and orange flowers, such as California fuchsia or flowering currants.
The last crucial element of a garden that's for the birds is fresh water. Place a birdbath, with the water changed daily, outside a window so you can see who's enjoying your garden. If you have the space, add native plants to a small pond, or install a fountain.
© 2006 Tanya Kucak